Guillermo del Toro is determined to make ‘At the Mountains of Madness’
Every filmmaker has a dream project. A film that they have a burning desire to bring to the big screen. For Academy Award winner Guillermo del Toro that film is undoubtedly At the Mountains of Madness, a legendary horror story from weird horror maestro H.P. Lovecraft, which the filmmaker as long wanted to see brought to life, and which at one point he was very close to bringing to the big screen.
As reported by MovieWeb, del Toro recently said that the project still remains very close to him and that he keeps a unique memento on him at all time to help him in his quest to see it brought to life.
Alluding to a signet ring that he wears, del Toro said, “this is why I wear this ring, since the project got cancelled. This is the fake ring about a fake university, the one that appears in the book, Miskatonic University, and I’m gonna wear it until I make the movie. They may bury me with it.”
Originally published in 1931, Lovecraft’s horror is a classic of the genre and concerns a group of explorers stranded in Antarctic, who then realize they are being picked off one by one by a malevolent, otherworldly entity.
At the Mountains of Madness feeds into Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, and in 2010 del Toro was readying to adapt it with support from James Cameron, who would produce the film, and Tom Cruise, who would produce and headline the film as its main star. However due to delays we would never see del Toro’s vision brought to life and the film would eventually be cancelled.
Of the experience, del Toro said,”it’s difficult to tackle. We had James Cameron as a co-producer with me …. we had Tom Cruise [to star] and we thought we were gonna get it made and we didn’t, it didn’t happen. These are not decisions you make. Most of us filmmakers, we exist in a world that moves above our paygrade. People think that our career is a series of decisions. Our career is a series of accidents happening with your decisions on top. You don’t decide to do one movie instead of another.”
Still it’s good to hear that del Toro’s passion for the project has never left him and maybe one day down the road we might finally get to see this grand filmmaker finally realise his hope to bring this legendary horror adaptation to the big screen.
Source: MovieWeb
Image: 20th Century Studios
