Guillermo del Toro has enjoyed a decades-long run in the entertainment industry, but if you asked the director which period of his career he preferred, we can almost guarantee he wouldn’t pick the late 1990s. For starters, that’s when del Toro made his first American movie, Mimic. Throughout the course of the film’s production, he butted heads with both of the Weinstein brothers; an experience he later said he hated. But that was nothing compared to what happened to del Toro’s father, Federico, around that same time.
In either 1997 or 1998 (sources vary on the exact year), the elder del Toro was kidnapped by bandits in Guadalajara, Mexico, and held for ransom. “When somebody’s taken, the family is taken,” the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly years later. “Both sides are paralyzed,” he continued. Federico was held captive for 72 days before he was safely returned.
James Cameron Offered to Help Pay a Ransom After Guillermo del Toro’s Father Was Kidnapped
With the help of del Toro’s friend and fellow director James Cameron, they were able to make that happen. However, despite numerous reports that Cameron paid the $1 million ransom that the kidnappers were demanding, del Toro insists that Cameron only put up $250,000 to pay the hostage negotiator. “And we paid him back a little while after that,” del Toro explained on the ReelBlend Podcast in 2022, “because it was a really, really harrowing situation. And he came in, and he took charge.”
That doesn’t mean Cameron didn’t offer to pay the ransom, though. In fact, del Toro revealed that Cameron even wanted to have the money flown in to the kidnappers by U.S. Marines. “You know, Jim likes adventure,” del Toro joked during a 2025 interview. The Hellboy director added, “That’s why [Cameron] goes to the bottom of the ocean and all that, while I go to a burger stand and a taco stand.”
Although several perpetrators were eventually apprehended, some managed to avoid arrest. Del Toro decided not to film in Mexico moving forward, but Federico surprisingly continued to live in Guadalajara following his kidnapping, where he passed away in 2018.
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