Lots of great directors have a famous dream project, that one film they always wanted to make that for some reason eluded them throughout their careers. For Orson Welles, it was Don Quixote. For Stanley Kubrick, it was Napoleon. For James Cameron, it was Avatar. See? Sometimes dreams really do come true. And it looks like Oscar-nominated filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s dream of adaptating H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness could very well be one of them. If he’s willing to compromise.
Related: Off the Shelf: At the Mountains of Madness
For those who don’t remember, Guillermo del Toro had been developing At the Mountains of Madness – about a scientific expedition to the Antarctic the uncovers an ancient, unthinkable evil – back in 2013 when Universal Pictures shelved the project, even though it would have been co-produced by hit machine James Cameron and starred Tom Cruise. The studio cited the film’s enormous budget and projected, audience-unfriendly R-rating as the reason At the Mountains of Madness was scuttled. Guillermo del Toro went off to make Pacific Rim instead, and although the sequel to Pacific Rim appears to be his next project, he’s now beginning to think that a PG-13 At the Mountains of Madness might work after all.
“I think that now, with the way I’ve seen PG-13 become more and more flexible, I think I could do it PG-13 now, so I’m going to explore it with [Legendary], to be as horrifying as I can, but to not be quite as graphic,“ Guillermo del Toro told Wall Street Journal. “There’s basically one or two scenes in the book that people don’t remember that are pretty graphic. Namely, for example, the human autopsy that the aliens do, which is a very shocking moment. But I think I can find ways of doing it. We’ll see. It’s certainly a possibility in the future. Legendary was very close to doing it at one point, so I know they love the screenplay. So, we’ll see. Hopefully it’ll happen. It’s certainly one of the movies I would love to do.”
Granted, there are a ton of movies that Guillermo del Toro would apparently love to do. The filmmaker always has a number of projects in development that might wind up being his next project if the stars align properly. Such projects include a new adaptation of Frankenstein, a DC supernatural superhero team-up movie and an adaptation of the Katsuhiro Otomo manga series Domu: A Child’s Dream.
This Week in Film News – Week Ending 04/11/14
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
This Week in Film News – Week Ending 07/11/14
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