In de boekrecensie over The Art of Rise of The Guardians werd al even ingegaan op de rol van regisseur, producent en creatief meesterbrein Guillermo del Toro bij de animatiefilms van DreamWorks Animation. In een interview met Collider geeft hij enkele details prijs over toekomstige projecten, zoals Puss in Boots 2, Kung Fu Panda 3 en Trollhunters. Bij de laatste treedt hij ook op als regisseur.

Over Puss in Boots 2, de opvolger van Puss in Boots (2011), die wereldwijd een dikke $550 miljoen opbracht, zegt Del Toro: We already did a couple of drafts on the screenplay for Puss in Boots 2. It was great because we were doing stuff that certainly seemed risky at the time. One of the big bets we did on Puss in Boots was that the quote-unquote bad guy, Humpty, redeems himself at the end; he becomes a hero in the last few minutes of his life, he can change. I wanted to do a movie that showed kids that you don’t have to be good or bad, you can change. It was very hairy to get that one through in a kids movie, because it’s not the norm. Normally you have a bad guy, you defeat him. So getting the box office backup gives us a chance to be risky and creative with the next one.”

Ook geeft hij al wat details prijs over Puss 2: “We take Puss to a completely different land which is very exotic. When Chris [Miller], the director, said ‘I don’t want Puss to happen in the same universe as the Shrek movies visually, I want to do a spaghetti western,’ he is, in this case, trying to do an adventure movie so we’re taking him to a very exotic locale.”

Er komt ook een vervolg op Kung Fu Panda (2008) en Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011). Del Toro geeft een kleine tease van de villain in Kung Fu Panda 3: “We basically talked about where we would go in the third one in the second one. We really finished [Kung Fu Panda 2] with the real father of Po saying ‘My son is alive,’ so that allows us to continue that arc of Po as a character. All I can say is the bad guy in the third one is possibly the most formidable villain in the series… We finished an outline, we presented a character design, we presented a couple of sequences in storyboard, and we’re very hard at work on a screenplay.”

Over zijn eigen Trollhunters, die al enige tijd in ontwikkeling is, zegt Del Toro: “The relationship with DreamWorks Animation actually started with me approaching them and saying ‘I want to direct an animated movie,’ and we started developing that screenplay Trollhunters three years ago. We’re on the fourth or fifth draft and I’m doing designs for it, and when the screenplay’s ready and the designs are ready I’m gonna set aside 18 months of my life and dedicate them only to the animated movie.”

Ook geeft hij aan welke kant hij op wilt met Trollhunters: “It’s about a group of kids that basically are Trollhunters at night, and they have to still do the math exam during the day; they get fit with braces and go through all the growing pains. I love the idea of creating a sort of nuanced portrait of kids that they’re not all perfect. They’re kind of misfits but not in a picturesque, hip way, they’re really, really kids that are not entirely great (laughs).”

Opvallend is dat alleen Kung Fu Panda 3 (18 maart 2016) is opgenomen in de releaselijst van DreamWorks Animation tot en met de zomer van 2016. In deze lijst zijn Puss in Boots 2 en Trollhunters niet opgenomen. Tenzij de Del Toro's project overeenkomt met de titel Trolls, die gepland staat voor 5 juni 2015.