It’s an old story from the ’90s (L.M. Kit Carson hooked me up with Guillermo del Toro around ’94 or ’95, or a little before the Mimic shoot) but a true one.

From a friend: “The actual loaned sum (i.e., Cameron to Del Toro) was around $250K, which used for the ransom negotiator’s salary (said sum was paid promptly after GDT’s father’s release). The ransom itself was painfully raised by GDT’s family over the long ordeal.

“The Cinema Blend and Uproxx articles are inaccurate in many ways, including the fact that the kidnapping happened many, many months after Mimic was released.”

From Rebecca Keegan‘s “The Futurist“: “But it was when his father was kidnapped in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1998 that del Toro realized just how much he could count on Jim the Guy. Miramax had recently released del Toro’s biggest budget movie, Mimic, a $30 million production, and in his hometown the director was now believed to be a Hollywood high roller. Criminals captured Federico del Toro and demanded a ransom from his son. Then they doubled it. Over the course of the seventy-two-day ordeal, Cameron called and e-mailed del Toro constantly, counseling his friend on hiring the right people to perform the ransom negotiations based on his own experience with personal security. He reviewed the references from the negotiators. It was Cameron who loaned del Toro the ransom negotiator’s salary, a sum big enough to alleviate the family’s financial burden. ‘Of all my friends, Jim was the Gibraltar stone, ‘ del Toro recalls. He would pay Cameron back immediately upon his father’s release…”