Guillermo del Toro Forum

One of the few pieces of truly exciting news for a mouth-breathing sci-fi and horror nerd like myself to come around in the last year was the news that Guillermo del Toro, the batshit creative mind behind Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth and Blade II, was planning on tackling an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness. The story, about a group of scientists who discover horrific alien creatures on an expedition to the Antarctic, felt like a perfect fit for del Toro's visually inventive, creepy-as-hell sensibilities as a director of horror. 
 
Unfortunately, it appears that project is not to be--at least for the foreseeable future. While del Toro had, at one point, wowed Universal with a dazzling presentation on the film--a presentation that got him funding to begin pre-production and early creature design work-- the New Yorker is reporting that Universal is no longer willing to fund the project. The writer, who recently profiled del Toro in a larger story, received the following email from the director regarding the Madness adaptation:

Madness has gone dark. The ‘R’ did us in.

Indeed, del Toro was evidently unwilling to budge on the film's R-rated content. The New Yorker article states that it wasn't designed to be a terribly gory film, but one full of deeply unsettling imagery that the MPAA wasn't likely to give a PG-13 pass to. Ultimately, the film's projected $150 million budget--even with names like James Cameron and Tom Cruise attached to the project in various functions--was deemed too unwieldy for the film that could not be marketed to a mass audience.

While del Toro could, and almost assuredly will shop the project to another studio, he is otherwise occupied by a project called Pacific Rim, which is itself an original world-set monster movie--one aimed at a PG-13 audience. Thus, it may be some time before the Mountains of Madness are traversed, if they ever are at all.

I was curious about this project. with del toro at the helm it could have been something special. in the end the lesson to take from this is that ratings suck and have no real meaning except to studio heads that only use the ratings system to estimate how much money they will make.

I'm a fan of lovecraft myself and it really pisses me off when studios trust MPAA ratings instead of distinguished directors. This sucks.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Damn. The MPAA really ticks me off sometimes.

Fuck. That's all I got this time boys.

@snake_runner said:

" Damn. The MPAA really ticks me off sometimes. "

Don't blame the MPAA, this is Universal being a bunch of uncreative, gutless, soulless bizbots.

Another example of the MPAA's infantilizing rating system keeping potentially good movies down. 

Big ball of suck.

My initial reaction was to be disappointed but honestly I'm kinda glad it fell through.  I mean I don't want a 150 million dollar film with Tom Cruise and James Cameron, I could care less who's involved with what property.

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about del Toro.  He's still got that video game deal to fall back on and hell, I wonder if that job with The Hobbit is still open?  Ya think? 
 
As for the movie itself, I wonder if any of those bean-counters at the studio have even read any Lovecraft.  It's not "slasher with an axe" horror so it's going to require more expensive imagery.  Oh well, maybe in a few years. 

I never understood the expression "All but dead"
Shouldn't that mean it is everything but dead? As in, dead is the last thing it is.

This seriously saddens me, but at least its not being downgraded to a pg-13. 
 
Still though, fuck. I was looking forward to the self consuming/birthing shoggoth sock.

Hopefully someone will start funding it.  Del Toro deserves it.

That's a shame, I was looking forward to this.
 
In other news, congrats Screened. You made Google News.

Cut Tom Cruise next time.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I was so damn excited for this. 
 
Guess we'll have to stick with At the Mouth of Madness by Carpenter. Not fantastic, but the closest we are ever going to get to a real Lovecraftian movie.

im excited for pacific rim.
and why couldn't the movie have been made a pg-13.  i havent read the story maybe someone could explain. 

Such bullshit. Can't blame Universal though. An R-rated movie with that kind of budget cannot possibly make its money back.

It seems like every times he tries to make a movie something goes wrong, it's a shame because he is a perfect match for Lovecraft's stories.