NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (UPI) — Famed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro described what a blow it was to lose Anton Yelchin, the lead vocal actor in his animated series “Trollhunters,” in a tragic car accident this year.
Yelchin was 27 when he was run over by his own vehicle in his driveway in June. He was remembered by “Trollhunters” creator del Toro during a round-table interview with reporters at New York Comic Con during the weekend.
Asked by UPI if he considered re-casting Yelchin’s central human character of Jim, del Toro replied: “I didn’t talk about it for a month. I could not and I would not. I didn’t have a meeting. I didn’t have a conference. I just had a phone call and I said, ‘We’re keeping everything he did and we’re going to complete the little pieces [that weren’t done yet…]’ Fortunately, we had most of it.”
Del toro said he wrote the series with troll characters in mind for Ron Perlman and Kelsey Grammer, but the “rest of the cast was casting.”
“We heard 30, 40, 50 voices… until we found someone that felt exactly like the character,” he explained. “The impulse behind ‘Trollhunters’ was to create sort of an ‘Amblin’ movie, like a 1980s, feel-good, suburban, very crisp and clean — emotionally, very crisp and clean — series that had a family feeling. You could have a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk and watch.”
Also featuring the voice of “The Walking Dead” star Steven Yeun, the series is to premiere on Netflix on Dec. 23.
“When ordinary teenager Jim Lake Jr. stumbles upon a mystical amulet on his way to school one morning, he inadvertently discovers an extraordinary secret civilization of mighty trolls beneath his small town of Arcadia,” a synopsis said.
“Strong-willed and seeking adventure, but wholly unprepared for the responsibilities thrust upon him, Jim is forced to take on the exalted mantle of ‘Trollhunter,’ sworn to protect the good trolls from powerful enemies bent on revenge.”
