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Guillermo del Toro recalls his desperate, death-defying police chase to finance 'Cronos'

“I was so broke.”

TIFF; Photo credit: Canva

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro recounts the lengths he went through to finance his first movie.

In a video from 2001 that’s resurfaced and is warming hearts across social media, Oscar-winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro recounts the extraordinary, almost comical lengths he went to finance his debut 1993 feature, Cronos—including what he refers to as “one of the most pathetic hot pursuits in the history of mankind.”

The clip, shared by the Toronto International Film Festival, shows del Toro explaining the non-traditional methods he had to resort to in order to finance Cronos, a quirky vampire flick which Roger Ebert described as “the stuff of classic horror films… [combined] with colorful Latin magic realism.” At the time, no one but the then 29-year-old director believed in the project, forcing del Toro to mortgage his house and sell his beloved car to scrape together the rest of the budget for the film, which totaled roughly $2 million.

“I was so broke,” del Toro recounts with a laugh.



“I was on the way to deliver my van to the car dealership where they were going to put it up for sale. And, for anyone who saw that movie, [I had] the giant gears from inside the clock in my van... and I was driving, I realized that I didn’t have the money to bribe a policeman. I had just passed a red light, and the cop was chasing me, and I said, 'I don’t have the money to bribe him, I’m going to have to escape.” - Guillermo del Toro


In Guadalajara, where del Toro was, and in Mexico at large, there’s a culture of “la mordida,” which translates to “the bite.” Colloquially, it's a term that refers to the common practice of bribing police officers, which is widely recognized as an aspect of daily life and as an informal way to resolve minor infractions, such as traffic violations. In a survey from 2023, over 20% of respondents in Mexico said that they were asked or required to pay a bribe to police officers.

“So, in comes one of the most pathetic hot pursuits in history of mankind,” continues del Toro. “A guy with an old van and huge gears, and a cop in a very crappy police car.” He goes on to explain that, despite these extreme sacrifices, he never recovered the money. “I mean, I did get a career, I did get to do other movies, but I lost a quarter of a million dollars out of my own pocket,” he describes. “And back then, the interest [at] the bank was 110%.”


Which might have been fine, if the movie had done well in Mexico. But the financial nightmare didn’t end with production. After the movie wrapped, the Mexican government refused to support it—despite Cronos and del Toro's invitation to Festival de Cannes, the world's most prestigious international film festival. “What was even more disheartening is that after having the movie done, the government saw it and said 'Well, it’s okay,’” says del Toro. “And I was like, 'Oh, but it’s so beautiful and it’s about vampires!’” So again, on his own dime, del Toro found his way to Cannes, without the official support or funding from his home country.

He recalls this part of the story with charismatic warmth: “So I said, 'Well, it’s a festival. I’ve been to a festival in Guadalajara; I think I can handle it. Let’s get there with 20 posters and a roll of tape; should prove more than enough.” The audience and del Toro laugh, knowing the immense scale of the distinguished film festival. When he and his wife arrived with just 20 posters in hand, del Toro immediately felt the sheer immensity of the moment. The director, despite being an atheist, even admits to praying in a church near Cannes out of desperation.

julia louis dreyfus, veep, praying, god, jesus christIn a moment of desperation, del Toro, an atheist, prayed to God for help.media2.giphy.com

Yet, Cronoscrushed at Cannes that year, where del Toro was nominated for the Caméra d’Or (or "Golden Camera,” the award for the best feature film by a first-time director). He also won the International Critic’s Mercedes-Benz Award, launching del Toro’s remarkable career, which began with an official Oscar submission for Best International Film from Mexico for Cronos in 1993. And although that film failed to pick up a nomination, del Toro would go on to win multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, for films including The Shape of Water (2017) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).

For aspiring screenwriters and creatives facing their own obstacles, del Toro’s journey offers a powerful reminder: sometimes, the most beautiful work requires incredibly difficult sacrifices. But in hindsight, even the most monumental of setbacks can be the very thing that leads you to your destiny. Or, in del Toro’s own words: “I think we live our lives seeking the shortest route, the closest parking space—everything quick, cheap, fast. And it’s not better. Two-thirds of the satisfaction of getting something is the process of getting it.”

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This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State

Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

Map represents the value of 100 dollars.

As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.

The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.

The map may not subvert one's intuitive assumptions, but it nonetheless quantities and presents the cost of living by geography in a brilliantly simple way. For instance, if you're looking for a beach lifestyle but don't want to pay California prices, try Florida, which is about as close to "average" — in terms of purchasing power, anyway — as any state in the Union. If you happen to find yourself in a "Brewster's Millions"-type situation, head to Hawaii, D.C., or New York. You'll burn through your money in no time.

income, money, economics, national average

The Relative Value of $100 in a state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

If you're quite fond of your cash and would prefer to keep it, get to Mississippi, which boasts a 16.1% premium on your cash from the national average.

The Tax Foundation notes that if you're using this map for a practical purpose, bear in mind that incomes also tend to rise in similar fashion, so one could safely assume that wages in these states are roughly inverse to the purchasing power $100 represents.


This article originally appeared seven years ago.

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Finance expert deftly points out the double standard between men's and women's hobbies

Maybe manicures and lattes aren't that "silly" after all.

Photo credit: Canva

Are women's manicures the new avocado toast?

We’ve all heard millennial money woes get blamed on “frivolous” purchases like avocado toast, which is, as we know, both laughable and maddening. But just ask financial expert Tori Dunlap, and there are other "double standards” regarding spending habits that are just as frustrating…one prime example being the way we view women’s hobbies versus men’s hobbies.

“I did all this research for my bookFinancial Feministabout the way women spend money versus men, and the frivolous spending, the spending that is the reason you can’t get rich or the reason you can’t get ahead, is only feminine spending,” Dunlap noted in a video posted to her TikTok.

As for “women’s hobbies,” Dunlap listed lattes, manicures, and shopping. Granted, these activities can add up (especially with the price of coffee these days) but often they are shared experiences with friends, or a form of self care (few things are as empowering as a fresh set of nails, after all). So there’s an added mental health benefit.

And yet, it’s these purchases that are “the reason women aren’t rich.” Meanwhile, hobbies traditionally seen as masculine, like NFL season tickets, sports betting, golf and video games, obviously warrant a far heftier price tag, and yet are seen as much more acceptable pastimes.

@herfirst100k 🤯
♬ original sound - Tori Dunlap — Money Expert 💸


Dunlap’s point clearly struck a nerve with many women, who shared their own experiences of being questioned about the frugality of their own hobbies by the men in their life whose choice of entertainment cost a small fortune.

“My husband has probably $20,000 worth of gym equipment. I really just wanted a Dyson air wrap 😂,”

My coworkers & boss made fun of me for spending $200 on a concert ticket ONE time meanwhile they spend $150 on golf EVERY WEEKEND. Not to mention the season tickets to baseball and football game,”

“My dad's tools cost like $100 each but he complains when my mom goes to Micahel’s once a month.”

It was also interesting seeing how many women’s hobbies still served others in some way, whereas men’s hobbies only served themselves.

For example, one person wrote, “I spent $600 on an embroidery machine I can use year-round and for various projects and for gift giving…we spent $3800 on golf clubs for my husband to go golfing 2 to 7 times a year.”

This might come across as a battle of the sexes, but there’s a broader underlying theme at work here. Much like the avocado toast controversy of yore, we see an advantaged subset of society blaming a more disadvantaged group for consuming ‘luxuries,’ rather than seeing the system that creates the disadvantages in the first place. In other words, are we really going to chastise folks for a little retail therapy instead of the money hoarding, resource exploiting billionaires and corporations that give us the real issues? C’mon.

As Dunlap put it, “The reason women aren’t rich is because of systemic oppression.”

Still, at least we can all agree that hobbies do us a world of good—especially if they get us off of blasted screens. So really, as long as it truly does no harm, let’s just let people find joy wherever they can. Be it at sports stadiums, or at the salon.

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Trevor Noah boils down the problem with the mega-rich using 'unrealized gains' as money

"It's such a fun game that billionaires get to play."

The Daily Show/Teddy Schleifer/Twitter

Trevor Noah's talked about Elon Musk's Twitter purchase in a Between the Scenes segment.

In the era of the mega-billionaire, much has been made of how such gargantuan wealth is built and what kind of taxes on wealth are fair and unfair.

The intricacies of economics can make such questions a bit tricky both practically and ethically, but there's no question that billionaires get enormous tax breaks through loopholes in our tax system and through straight-up tax legislation favoring the wealthy.

For the average American who will never see so much as one percent of a billion dollars in our entire lifetime, wrapping our minds around the financial workings of extreme wealth is like trying to learn another language. The whole "here's how much money I earn, here's what I can write off, here's what I pay in taxes" thing is pretty straightforward, but not how the uber-rich life works. Wealth doesn't equal money in uber-rich-land—except when it does.

In a Between the Scenes moment from a 2022 episode of "The Daily Show," Trevor Noah highlighted the weird way billionaire wealth sometimes counts as money and sometimes doesn't in a segment on The Daily Show. In his signature funny-but-smart way, Noah broke down the hypocrisy of billionaires being able to treat their stock shares as money when it comes to buying businesses, but not when it comes to paying taxes.

"I'm by no means an economist, nor am I an expert on stock markets and all things finance-related, but you have to admit, a lot of what happens on Wall Street seems like a scam," he began.

He talked about how the stock market went up one day because of what Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said about raising interest rates, then plummeted the next day because of people misinterpreting what he said.

"First of all, how does that happen?" he asked. "How are markets changing because somebody didn't read something or understand—and all of you at the same time? And secondly, why do markets do that?"

He said the nature of stock markets going up and down feels "scammy," and somehow we're supposed to be convinced that the stock market is good for us.

"I get it for people's retirements, and I get it for 401Ks and I understand those aspects of it," he said. "But I've realized there are so many things that are designed in such a slick, scammy way."

He gave Elon Musk's pending purchase of Twitter as an example.

"People argue that you cannot tax billionaires on the shares that they hold in a company because it is an 'unrealized gain," he said. Then he explained that he understands that argument because the shares haven't been sold, so there's no actual money in hand. "So you're worth the money, but you don't have the money…and it could also crash, and then you have nothing, so we can't tax you on it."

"You can't tax the people on a thing because they don't have it, it's just there," he says. "Okay fine."

Then he talked about Elon Musk's offer to buy Twitter, in which Musk put up his shares of Tesla stock as collateral. Noah explained how using his Tesla stock as collateral to get banks and investors to put up the cash for him to borrow to buy Twitter.

"So you can buy a thing based on what you have, yes. But when we want to tax you, you can say 'I don't have it,'" said Noah. "It's such a fun game that billionaires get to play because all their money is in that."

Noah points out how we can't fudge around with the IRS due to where our money is located. "You can't be like, 'That money's in the bank, I don't have that money. What money? It's in the bank. Only when I take it out, then you can tax me. For now, it's in the bank, IRS."

That's not something the IRS would accept.

"But if you have billions in shares, you can then use that as money, to then get more money, but not get taxed on any money, because you 'don't have money.'"

Noah said he's not suggesting that we tax people on unrealized gains.

"But I am saying, it seems to me that you then shouldn't be able to use a thing that's unrealized as collateral," he said.

That last point is worth restating. Noah isn't saying that billionaire wealth in the form of stock shares should be taxed like liquid money. He's questioning whether people should be able to use their untaxed wealth as collateral to get liquid money loans to avoid having to liquidate their own wealth (which they would then have to pay taxes on).

Food for thought. Watch:

This article originally appeared on 5.10.22

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