Spending 3 years on Pacific Rim was worth it: Guillermo Del Toro

New Delhi: Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro loved indulging his passion for monsters on a giant scale by directing Pacific Rim and the director says the three years that he spent on dragons versus robots saga were worth it.

The Mexican director, who has been behind films like Pan's Labyrinth and Hell Boy, came to Pacific Rim at a time when things were not going very smooth. In an email interview with PTI, Del Toro said, "Basically, you're giving it your life. It's like alright, Pacific Rim, take three years of my life and then when you ask was it worth three years of your life? For me, the answer was absolutely yes."

Guillermo Del Toro had quit The Hobbit, while Mountains of Madness got shelved. "Mountains is the hardest experience I've had in 20 years of career. When that movie collapsed, I was crushed and devastated but I had been working, by then, on Pacific Rim which was parallel," Del Toro said.

The Warner Bros Pictures and Legendary Pictures film is releasing in India on July 12. The film is based on a screenplay by del Toro and Travis Beacham of Clash of the Titans fame. Pacific Rim stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi and Charlie Day among others. In the film, giant monsters rise from the Pacific Ocean and attack major cities, leading humans to retaliate with gigantic robots called Jaegers.

It is only the second time that Del Toro, 48, has worked with a writer after Blade. The director said his agent sent him the script thinking he will pass it like others. "My agent always sends me stuff knowing I'm going to pass. They sent that (the script of Pacific Rim). I knew Travis from The Killing on Carnival row. We had worked together; I loved Travis, admired his work and admired him. "I said, I'm going to read it! I read it and I wrote:'Give me a meeting immediately and I went instantly. I came in and I started pitching the craziest ideas –the co pilots, the baby Kaiju... and Travis liked them and that's where we started."

Travis said that while they faced many challenges, creating monsters and robots on paper felt like a holiday. "I mean, honest to God, it was sort of the dream project... it's like: 'I'm getting paid for this?' I thought I was getting away with something," Travis said.