The fall of Guillermo Del Toro‘s attempted James Cameron-produced adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s “At The Mountain Of Madness” has been somewhat redeemed by the helmer’s gestating monster-flick “Pacific Rim,” which now has Charlie Hunnam, Charlie Day and Idris Elba all set to star, but if we got anything out of his interview with Deadline, it’s probably the fact he’s still not sure what went awry.
Speaking with the L.A. Times now, Del Toro has reaffirmed his desire to adapt the Lovecraft novel defiantly revealing that he’s “not giving up. ‘Mountains of Madness’ has been with me for thirteen, fourteen years and I really don’t want to give up on it. Look, the movies I do, I stick with them when I think, well, if I don’t do it, nobody will. ‘Hellboy,’ if I hadn’t done it, I don’t think anyone would have. ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ same thing. ‘Mountains of Madness,’ the way I plan to do it is a very peculiar take, and I think if I don’t stick with it the version I would like to see would never get made.”
Two of the main reported roadblocks for the adaptation were apparently the budget and potential rating, which Del Toro addressed after the project’s demise. He now added that any resurrection of the project would likely see him “address the budget [rather] than the rating. The movie can perfectly someday be PG-13, but contractually I need to protect it. There’s nothing in the movie that is profanity or sexual situations or any of that. But what we learned with ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is that sometimes intensity, the intensity of the situations, garners you the R.”
As any of the helmers in our Del Toro-inspired Great Lost Projects feature can probably attest to, though, rebuilding momentum on fallen projects isn’t as easy the second time around — though the likes of John Hillcoat and Paul Thomas Anderson have Megan Ellison to thank. It’s just a real shame as the story — which follows a 1930’s arctic expedition that uncovers something otherworldly — was so quintessentially Del Toro.
On the helmer’s side? ‘Mountain Of Madness’ star and all-round mover and shaker Tom Cruise has evidently stayed on board with the helmer revealing that the actor is “definitely that interested and that happy where we were creatively. So we have good legs to travel on, if the time and the opportunity present itself. But we’re going to fight for that to happen.”
In the mean time, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Mexican director: “Pacific Rim” is looking to begin lensing this November with a big summer release on July 12, 2013 already planned.
