The Homage: One of our favourite moments in Gollum is Aragorn sneaking up on a spearing one of the Orcs.

It’s a nicely dark moment and shows that he’s not above a little bit of the ultraviolence, as in LOTR.
 
Lesson For del Toro: Don’t skimp on the darkness. We’re certain he won’t, but we want him to push the battles and the danger as far as he can.

True, the studio will want as wide an audience as possible, but if The Dark Knight proved anything, you can shove the boundaries occasionally.