2 Decades Later Guillermo del Toro Says ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ Will Likely Remain on His Bucket List
This isn’t just any story; it’s the saga of Guillermo del Toro and his white whale, er monster. At the Mountains of Madness, hanging in production purgatory, involves a visionary director, a legendary producer, a megastar actor, and a script so ambitious that it collapses under its own weight. For nearly two decades, this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation has been the ultimate “what if” for horror fans, a project that promised cosmic dread on an epic scale but now sits on a dusty shelf of unmade masterpieces. And honestly, it’s a cinematic tragedy.
The Icy Origins
Back in 2006, the stars seemed to align. Guillermo del Toro, already a master of monsters, penned a script based on Lovecraft’s chilling novella. The story is pure, uncut icy horror: a doomed Antarctic expedition unearths an ancient, non-human city and awakens unspeakable, multi-eyed, shoggoth-y things that shouldn’t exist.
To make it even more tantalizing, James Cameron was on board to produce, and Tom Cruise was set to star. This wasn’t going to be some indie horror flick; this was a blockbuster event with a whopping $150 million budget and a hard R-rating.
So what went wrong? In short: studio cowardice.
Why Did Hollywood Fear the Madness?
Let’s be real: a $150 million, R-rated horror film with a bleak, unsettling ending is a tough sell for any studio executive whose primary goal is to sell toys and happy meals. Despite having Cameron and Cruise attached, both Warner Bros. and Universal Studios ultimately balked. They got cold (or frozen) feet, worried that a film so unapologetically weird and dark wouldn’t find a broad enough audience to justify its massive budget.
Guillermo Del Toro, to his credit, refused to compromise his vision. He wasn’t going to water down Lovecraft’s nihilistic horror into a PG-13 creature feature. The project died, and all we got was a measly CGI test clip of a creature rig that del Toro later shared on Instagram, a ghost of the movie that could have been.
Is There Still Hope for Guillermo del Toro’s Lovecraftian Epic?
Fast forward to today, and the outlook is still pretty darn desolate. Guillermo del Toro has all but confirmed that At the Mountains of Madness is likely to remain on his bucket list forever. He’s called the project “too big, too crazy, too R-rated,” and who can blame him for feeling that way? He’s poured years of his life into this dream, only to be repeatedly shut down.
Adding another nail in the coffin, del Toro has announced that his upcoming take on Frankenstein for Netflix will mark the end of a cycle for him. He’s ready to step away from the gothic, monster-centric filmmaking he’s perfected over his career and explore something new. While he hasn’t sworn off monsters forever (very thankfully), his creative desires are pulling him in a different direction. After fighting for so long, it seems the master has finally made peace with letting this particular monster go. In an interview with Empire, del Toro stated:
This movie closes the cycle… if you look at the lineage, from Cronos to The Devil’s Backbone, to Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak to this, this is an evolution of a certain type of aesthetic, and a certain type of rhythm, and a certain type of empathy… I feel like I need a change. You never know. The day after tomorrow, I may want to do Jekyll & Hyde, or whatever. But right now, my desire is to try and do something very different.- del Toro
At the Mountains of Madness is Still on Ice
It’s a frustrating pill to swallow. In an era where audiences are smarter and hungrier for unique, director-driven stories, you have to wonder if a studio or streamer would be brave enough to take the plunge today. Netflix backed his multi-year deal, and his Pinocchio won an Oscar. Couldn’t they be the ones to finally unleash the shoggoths? For now, the answer is a resounding no.
There has never been a H.P. Lovecraft novel with a complete and true cinematic adaptation – and The Shape of Water director would undoubtedly be up to the task. At the Mountains of Madness remains the greatest horror movie Guillermo del Toro never made, a chilling reminder that sometimes, the scariest monster of all is a studio’s bottom line.
