After months of joyous reverie and anticipation of there finally being a serious minded adaption of hallowed horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s work, the Cult Of Howard may now not be saying “Cthulhu Ftagn!” with so much zeal.
Criterion Cast broke the sad news today. After e-mailing Mr. Del Toro about a confirmation on the shooting dates for At The Mountains Of Madness, they received word back from the Man himself concerning the state of the project. That word was “Dead”. Of course, the bottom line is money. Universal would have to make $500 million worldwide to break even on the proposed budget of $150 million, and have cold feet in regards to how the public will take to a horror film based in the snow. Here I was, hoping for another dose of arctic terror that could hopefully sit next to Carpenter’s THE THING (which incidentally was a flop when it was first released). Art vs. commerce can be a tragic thing. The bodies laying strewn around from this lost battle are The Great Old Ones. Now they will never be freed from their icy prisons to release cosmic horrors upon us earthbound mortals. Even the deep pockets and political connections of James Cameron couldn’t stem the tide of fear and loss from Universal execs.
Fuck my life.
According to news and sources, Del Toro’s next film will be Pacific Rim, a giant-monsters-attack film coming from Legendary Pictures. Rumor has it, they may be futzing with the Travis Beacham script and applying the concepts to the proposed Godzilla reboot as well. Hmmm. Seems like Del Toro will wind up doing something massive next regardless of what it is, eh? From The Hobbit to At The Mountains Of Madness (I can hardly type those words without crying tears of loss right now) and onto what might be the next take on The Lizard That Harryhausen Hates aka Godzilla.
At this point? I’ll take it! I’m stilllll doing the pee-pee dance to see the GDT produced Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark as well.
For a cool, level headed, and informative piece on the situation regarding ATMoM being aborted, read Drew McWeeny’s article here as well.
Check out the interview below, shot courtesy of Seattle Geekly, here in Seattle when Guillermo was in town at the Sci Fi Museum. Oh what could have been, what could have been. A
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This entry was posted on March 9, 2011 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Miskatonic Books with tags At the Mountains of Madness, Del Toro, H. P. Lovecraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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March 9, 2011 at 3:46 pm
So many of us were dreaming of the effect a hugely popular film would have on Lovecraft’s current popularity, book sales, &c. At least two anthologies of stories inspired by AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS are in the works as a way of celebrating the making of this film. I am not surprised that the film is dead, but I am extremely annoyed and rather sad at the reasons of its demise. However, H. P. Lovecraft is Eternal & needs to breath of life from Hollywood.
March 10, 2011 at 8:42 am
There is an online petition that I’ve signed:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/mountainsofmadness/
March 11, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Perhaps another studio will be willing to take this on. I was at the talk/book signing that Del Toro did in Seattle. What a marvelous soul this man is, his honesty refreshing and lack of ego a god-send. The essence of this mans being is weaved through out every film he does and his willingness to give up his personal paycheck to afford his vision speaks volumes on his devotion to the craft. To be able to see his attention to the detail he would put forth for us to witness on such a film as ATMOM would be wonderous. If we are lucky, and success follows in the wake of this giant monsters movie, “Pacific Rim” that he’s been offered by Universal, that they may green-light the proect.
When I watch his take on Hellboy and they go to revive Rasputin in the Arctic, you can clearly get a glimps of where ATMOM might of been heading, a ride I would love to go on for sure.
March 11, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Here is the active link to where this article came from: http://twitchfilm.com/news/2011/03/cthulhu-wept—at-the-mountains-of-madness-now-dead-in-frozen-wastes.php
March 20, 2011 at 4:46 am
This has been the first time I’ve actively been awaiting a movie before it’s even been made. I’d even have gone to the cinema to see it, being unable to await the DVD, or terrestrial TV premier (which I do for most films).
I’m surprised at how glum this has left me feeling.