As many of you already know, back in 2006, Gullermo del Toro was working on developing a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness. Unfortunately, the movie never got made and it’s one of those films that movie buffs would have loved to see get made!
The plan was to make it an R-rated film, Tom Cruise was set to sta,r and James Cameron was on board as a producer. It told the story of a disastrous Antarctic expedition that encounters unspeakable horrors after discovering ancient ruins.
The project was pitched to several studios, but all of them turned it down because no one wanted to make a big-budget R-rated horror movie. He was looking for around $200 million to make it, and if he didn’t get the right amount of money for it, he wasn’t going to make it.
Well, the filmmaker has now shared some early cool CGI test footage for the film that gives us a glimpse of a terrifying moment from the film involving a monstrous creature. It’s pretty awesome, and it makes me wish that del Toro would have actually had the opportunity to make this movie!
Del Toro captions the footage, “All CGI test for a rig – ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] for At the Mountains of Madness (a decade ago) never-before-seen.” It features an explorer in the mountains being attacked by a creepy tentacled monster.
The story is written in first-person perspective by the geologist William Dyer, a professor from Miskatonic University. He writes to disclose closely kept secrets in the hope that he can deter a planned and much publicized scientific expedition to Antarctica. On a previous expedition there, a party of scholars from Miskatonic University, led by Dyer, discovered fantastic and horrific ruins and a dangerous secret beyond a range of mountains taller than the Himalayas. There he discovers that ancient beings lurk below the surface of the world, several species of forgotten, intelligent beings, including the “Elder Things.”
Last year, Guillermo del Toro said that he wanted to make his At the Mountains of Madness movie at Netflix and shared his new vision for it saying:
"The thing with Mountains is the screenplay I co-wrote fifteen years ago is not the screenplay I would do now, so I need to do a rewrite. Not only to scale it down somehow, but because back then I was trying to bridge the scale of it with elements that would make it go through the studio machinery."
He went on to say that if he got to make the movie at Netflix, he could “go to a far more esoteric, weirder, smaller version of it” and shared:
"You know, where I can go back to some of the scenes that were left out. Some of the big set pieces I designed, for example, I have no appetite for. Like, I've already done this or that giant set piece. I feel like going into a weirder direction."
The director also talked about how crazy and unsettling the ending of the story is, saying:
"I know the ending we have is one the most intriguing, weird, unsettling endings, for me. There's about four horror set pieces that I love in the original script. So, you know, it would be my hope. I certainly get a phone call every six months from Don Murphy going 'Are we doing this or what? Are you doing this next or what?' and I say 'I have to take the time to rewrite it.'"
I would have loved to see Del Toro’s original vision of the movie, but maybe one day he’ll actually get to adapt this crazy story. I hope he hasn’t given up on it, I would love to finally see him get to makes this movie, which has been a passion project for him.
Check out the test footage below and tell us what you think!
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