Guillermo del Toro and James Cameron take on Mountains of Madness

Guillermo del Toro’s name has managed to feature almost daily in one news story or another with the huge number of projects he’s attached to (12 in development and counting). But since he departed The Hobbit, his next project has been the source of much speculation. It’s finally been revealed today as an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness.

Deadline is reporting that del Toro’s attachment isn’t the surprising factor, the shocker is that coming aboard as producer alongside Susan Montford and Don Murphy is Avatar director James Cameron. But when you hear that Mountains of Madness will be shot in 3D, it all begins to make sense. Cameron’s presence helped win over the studio and although he said previously that he wouldn’t put his name to any movies except the 3D reboot of Fantastic Voyage, he made an exception for del Toro. Deadline is also reporting that pre-production will begin in the next few weeks and will shoot next summer.

Lovecraft’s tale sees a gruesome discovery made during an expedition to the South Pole in the 1930s and hints that mankind came from older gods from another planet. And what we’ve read of the del Toro and Matthew Robbins script (which is currently being amended), you don’t want to mess with the creatures that they find there…

Mountains of Madness has been in the works for years, first set up at DreamWorks in 2004. Universal then acquired the package in 2007 when del Toro made an overall deal which greenlit Hellboy 2 with the hopes of establishing him as a cornerstone filmmaker (but which was put on hold after del Toro got involved with The Hobbit).

Interestingly (as Ain’t it Cool points out), Deadline avoids talking about budget or rating, two things that will make a massive difference on the success of the film. The world that the expedition encounters is richly detailed and very alien, so the film will have to budget in enough for creatures and effects (this is sounding more and more like a Cameron project). As for its rating, we’re hoping against a PG-13/12A. For this to be a true horror in the vein of The Thing or The Exorcist which, again according to Ain’t it Cool, is how del Toro has always envisioned it, a kid-friendly rating just ain’t gonna cut it. 

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