Guillermo Del Toro has to be a clone because, if there aren’t four or five of him, I don’t get how he can be so prolific.  First, he was directing Peter Jackson’s upcoming “The Hobbit,” but left that production when it got caught up in MGM’s flirtation with bankruptcy.  From there he went on to his version of H.P Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains Of Madness,” until Universal got cold feet due to its cost, despite having Tom Cruise as the lead and James Cameron as producer.

Soon he moved on to “Pacific Rim,” though prior he executive produced the remake of “Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.”

While these events were going on he co-wrote a trilogy of vampire novels with Chuck Dixon.

The novels, “The Strain,” “The Fall” and “The Night Eternal” imagine vampirism as less a state to be admired that an infection with a tenacious will to survive.  Reading the novels–I finished the first two, and soon will move on to the third–reminded me of nothing else than the ‘Reapers’ from Blade 2, a film that clearly informs the novels sensibilities.

The trilogy is now going to be made into a series on FX, a cable channel known for risky behavior (after all, they’re the home of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) though the best part of that is that Del Toro intends to direct as often as his ridiculously busy schedule allows (did I mention he’s also developing a series on ABC based upon Marvel’s “The Incredible Hulk?”) and the series is planned to parallel the books and run for no longer than three or five seasons.

That’s good, because there’s nothing worse that a television series that wears out its welcome, jumping many sharks in the process.