Guillermo del Toro experienced that horrible, sinking feeling first hand.
The Mexican film maker has a habit of writing all his ideas down in leather bound notebooks and he did exactly that with his thoughts surrounding ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’—a movie about a child’s fantasy set in the wake of the Spanish Civil War.
The notebook contained four years’ worth of planning and sketches around the plot and character deign for the movie. It was the foundations of the entire project.
Del Toro tried to run after the British taxi, but to no avail. He jumped in another taxi and asked the driver to follow the one driving off with his hard work, but they could not catch up with it.
Luckily the cabbie noticed the journal on the back seat of his cab. He found a scrap of paper with the logo of the hotel Guillermo was staying in printed on it. There was no name or address for the hotel, but he went to work finding the owner of the leather bound journal.
Two days later he returned the notebook to Del Toro who was so delighted that he tipped the driver $900!
Until that day he was not even sure if he was going to make the movie, but after the kind act of the taxi driver, he believed it was a sign that ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ had to be made.
