Guillermo Del Toro Shares CGI Test Footage From His Unmade At The Mountains Of Madness Adaptation
Several years ago, modern-day horror savant Guillermo del Toro came very close to making a feature film based on an H.P. Lovecraft novella called "At the Mountains of Madness." If the makers of "The Thing" had a horror movie baby with Lovecraft himself, "At the Mountains of Madness" would be that deadly, terrifying baby.
Sadly, the project never got very far off the ground. Between James Cameron and Tom Cruise getting involved, along with the movie studio demanding a PG-13 rating (clearly, the executives making these decisions have no idea who H.P. Lovecraft is), there was no way to reconcile del Toro's vision with the changes the studio wanted to make in order to assure profitability. So the film will forever reside in the cemetery of movie projects that the public will never get to see.
Or will it? We've covered before how del Toro's been harboring regrets. Last year, on "The Kingscast" podcast, Guillermo del Toro spoke about a legendary project ("At the Mountains of Madness") that he wanted to revisit. On top of that, del Toro just dropped some CGI test footage for his fans on social media. Is del Toro just feeling nostalgic, or is there something more strategic going on behind this "never-before-seen" footage that's currently going viral on social media?
Fans on social media are hoping that there's a future for At the Mountains of Madness
As of this writing, Guillermo del Toro's Instagram post is less than an hour old and already has more than 11,000 views (and counting). The 25-second clip features an arctic explorer being snuck up on by a large, pale, hideous Lovecraftian horror. The creature looks like someone took Voldemort, a raw Thanksgiving turkey, and a Georgia O'Keeffe painting and smooshed them all into a terrifying monstrosity. It then launches at least half a dozen tentacles at the man, ensnaring him and dragging him to his doom.
The Instagram comments so far are largely positive, with many hopeful that the post isn't just a trip down memory lane for del Toro. @jeir7 posted an interesting suggestion (in Spanish) that instead of resurrecting the movie, del Toro could turn it into a video game and recruit the help of renowned video game designer Hideo Kojima for maximum epicness — but that's highly unlikely given his falling out with Konami several years ago (via Polygon). @jr.josearagao commented with delight that the footage looked just like what he imagined when he read the original script. And dozens of fans (if not scores or more) are demanding that the movie get made already.
Most poignantly, fans like @juanmanuel.rj are asking via social media (also in Spanish): "You know something and you don't want to tell us yet, right, Guillermo?" Dropping the footage on social media in order to get a feel for consumer demand would be a valuable bargaining chip in any possible negotiations. Such footage can also help building hype for a project, just look at Ryan Reynolds' "Deadpool."