Empire is reporting that the beloved and beardy monster movie maestro, Guillermo Del Toro, may still see his dream project, an adaptation of H.P Lovecraft‘s At the Mountains of Madness, reach the light of day. Over the weekend at Comic-Con, the director announced that he has not yet abandoned it and that it still may head into production.
Del Toro has been a fan of the source material since he was 11 and has been actively working on his passion project for nearly 20 years now. Two years ago it looked like the project would finally come to fruition with James Cameron producing and Tom Cruise starring. Creatures and sets were designed, locations were being scouted and drafts were being written.
But then the project collapsed, a moment which Del Toro describes as a soul-shattering experience and debilitating. There had been problems throughout production but the final straw came with Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus beating Del Toro’s film to the chase, a film that featured similar theological issues and plot points intermingled with monster horror.
However, Del Toro now says that things may still turn around.
“I think we may still make it. When I’m brave enough to go and see Prometheus, I’ll know. But for now, I don’t know. We are all nothing but human beings. I go to the theatre, I buy my ticket for Prometheus and I go and see something else, because I’m afraid. I’m not a mental entity, I am also emotional, because the ideas are similar, from what I’ve heard and I’ll see it next week, I promise!”
Even if there are similarities, Scott’s film was far from perfect and there have been countless other films that deal with the similar subject material but are still enjoyable in their own right. Just look at every rom-com from the past ten years.
Del Toro’s stab at intellectual space horror could still turn out to be excellent and if he has any monsters as creepy as the “hand-eye guy thing” from Pan’s Labyrinth up his sleeve, then he could certainly trump Prometheus in the scares department.