The story, upon which (barf) Alien Vs Predator was apparently partially based, involves a geologist on an expedition in the Antarctic who discovers a mountain chain which harbors some mysterious, ancient creatures which may hold clues to the origin of mankind itself. SOLD!
Del Toro told ComingSoon at Comic-Con:
The film is looking to head into production possibly as early as next summer."What 'Mountains of Madness' is is a throwback to something nobody does anymore, it's tentpole horror. Everybody now understands horror as minimum investment, maximum return, and most of the time, they go at it, as production entities, with great cynicism, like 'Let's make it really gory or extreme' and for a very low budget, and recuperate our investment, make money, all that. If you make a horror movie for half a million and it makes 4, they're very happy. The studio sees horror movies as something they will not invest more than $30-40 million. 'Mountains of Madness' needs to be tentpole in the way that the tentpole movies of the past were, about $130 million.
"I remember when I saw 'Alien' and I was absolutely blown away by it. I saw John Carpenter's 'The Thing,' I saw Kubrick's 'The Shining.' These were massive movies in a genre that normally doesn't get massive movies. (With) 'Mountains of Madness,' there are two things that I've been battling all these years: period and R-rated, and a very very tough ending, so the studio is very scared of period obviously, he's very scared of the budget and an R-rating, and the first conversation I always have is, 'Does it have to be R?' and I go, 'Yes.' 'Does it have to be period? Does it have to be Antarctica?' 'Yes.'
"'Mountains' is my dream and we've been pursuing it for thirteen years and I hope it happens,"
