Yesterday’s news that Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ was about to start filming might have been very, very premature. Turns out that money issues and everyone’s desire to work with the uber awesome Del Toro might mean that he does an entirely different movie first.
The news had been that ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ was going to start filming in June with James Cameron producing and and Tom Cruise in the lead position (No, not as one of Lovecraft’s monsters…).
The problem is, Universal is unsure about spending $150 million on an R Rated monster flick. A few months ago they probably wouldn’t have a problem because Cameron’s name usually means gold… then his last movie tanked… you know, that one with the cave that no one saw?
The whole thing has to be rather heart-breaking for Del Toro. He had to leave ‘The Hobbit’ and then he got the chance to make his dream movie, ‘Mountains’. Now it looks like he might have to move on to something else first.
The good news is that this other film still sounds cool. It is called ‘Pacific Rim’ and it is a pg13 Monster film that is being set up as a tent pole production (big budget) from Legendary Pictures.
He asked the studio for final word on a budget for Mountains by the end of business yesterday, so I’m sure we’ll have an update for you later today.
A silver lining is that even if this does happen, Del Toro is hoping that he can go directly back to working on ‘At The Mountains of Madness’ after he finishes ‘Pacific Rim.’