As far as anyone is concerned, Guillermo Del Toro is a big steaming pile of awesome. Between Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, and now the Hobbit, he has already earned himself a seat at the table of all time geek creators. Even though he still has plenty of time before he’s done with The Hobbit, he’s already to start talking about his next project and he is being extremely mysterious about it.

Here is what he posted on the Onering.net forum:

In a few days there will be a BIG announcement (big for me, at least) that is not-Hobbit related. BEFORE anyone starts wondering the usual “how does he have time?, Is this detracting form The Hobbit?” etc It is a project that started over 2 years ago, before The Hobbit and will render fruits in the mid-term, not intruding on my Hobbit duties. Rest assured. The key letter is “D”

So what could it mean? Well, let’s take a look.

According to IMDB, He’s attached to several movies with a D in them. Let’s run them down.

1. Drood – Set for release in 2012.
“An exploration into the life of Charles Dickens after he survived a deadly train crash in 1865, and whether the incident could have possibly turned him into a killer around the time he worked on his final novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.””

2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Set for release in 2012.

3. Death: The High Cost of Living – Set for release in 2011.
“Teenager Sexton Furnival meets a young woman who claims to be Death, taking on mortal flesh for one day in a century to walk among men. She seems like just another London goth girl, except maybe a little more eccentric. Is she crazy? Or is Sexton really in the company of a perky anthropomorphic representation of a human condition?” Written by Niel Gaiman.

4. Deadman – Set for release in 2010.
“Deadman is the ghost of a circus acrobat named Boston Brand, who was murdered during a trapeze performance. His spirit was granted the power by a Hindu goddess to possess any living being in order to find his killer. In the ensuing search, Brand finds himself obliged to help others. The hero was created in 1967 by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino and is known for a run of issues by artist Neal Adams.”

This is what is listed… but we have another theory. In a few days, just as he mentioned in his post, the biggest D of all time is coming, D23. The first official fan con for Disney. That fits in perfectly with a tidbit that Slashfilm.com dug up from 2008.

Back in 2008, del Toro told Empire magazine that he’d spoken to Neil Gaiman about a possible adaptation of Marvel’s Dr. Strange. Gaiman later clarified that he’d spoken to the big man about the job and was very excited, adding “I would love to write Dr. Strange. It would be absolutely one of my dream jobs, a Dr. Strange movie”.

We’ve got to agree with /film on this one. The D’s are lined up better than that girl at the bar in Total Recall.

D23
Dr. Strange
It falls in line perfectly with Marvel starting to prepare their next slate of films. How freakin cool would that be? And, just to make it even sweeter, getting Del Toro and Gaiman together for Dr. Strange, will get them set to finally do “Death: The High Cost of Living.”