Prometheus has killed Guillermo Del Toro's 'At the Mountains of Madness

[ElijahWhateley]

The Thing on the Doorstep would make a great film. It has opportunities for talented actors to really shine (although, by the same token, bad ones to fail miserably) and very limited needs for special effects. It even has something of a love story! And gender bending! And legitimate excuses to include gratuitous college party scenes! Now that I think about it, how is it not a feature film already? It's a Lovecraft story without all the things people say make Lovecraft unfilmable.

Then there are The Shunned House, The Rats in the Walls, The Lurking Fear, and The Moon-Bog. All of them are variations on the haunted house, and could be done very easily with a limited effects budget. The challenge wouldn't be getting Hollywood to understand them, but making them seem different than any other haunted house films.

"The Night Ocean" doesn't even have any monsters at all. It could make for a very successful pretentious Indie film.

Just don't go making a rom-com of Sweet Ermengade.

[Nineteen-Delta]

Actually, there are many stories that could be expanded into movies: Pickman's model, Cool Air, The Music of Eric Zann, and Polaris are also sceaming out to be made! The Rats in the walls, and the Hunter of the dark 'trilogy' (tit-for-tat w/ Robert Bloch) would get my vote too. -Actually even the dreamlands stories might be ripe for the making -if anyone could commit to the expense of the visual effects. There may be a chance for us all to contribute to a movie though.... - There are actors and filmmakers that are among YSDC contributors. Some people are pretty awesome with props. I know a producer, a few actors and I myself could write a pretty nifty script. - Go crowd, go! ( and Sandy P! - With his name behind a project how could it fail?!)

An amateur film unit made a film not five miles from me here in Munchkin HQ and got it shown in the West End.... So it can be done!

Totroise in Love:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521242/

I don't suppose there are any hollywood insiders on here?
-If it hasn't be done already, can anyone out there start a poll so we could all vote for the story we most would like to work on.....?

[Gil_Trevizo]

At Comic-Con while promoting Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro goes a little more in-depth on the process of shelving At the Mountains of Madness, and he also talks about that in relation to Prometheus:

DEADLINE: After I wrote about the film being halted because the studio would not make a $150 million film and give you the right for it to be an R rated movie, numerous studio execs said they would have done the same thing, even though they wanted to see the movie. It’s hard to make your money back on a big budget R film. Do you regret not being more flexible?

DEL TORO: No. But you’re guilty of a lot of my problems, not on Mountains, but you were the one whose article said I was busy till 2015, when in my mind, I’m unemployed and go movie to movie.

DEADLINE: Well, that was an editor at my former workplace, Daily Variety, trying to be clever. But what you say is true. But should you have caved on the rating and been willing to do Mountains at PG-13?

DEL TORO: I don’t regret it. Look at Prometheus. There’s an R rated horror movie that doesn’t have big name stars. We had Tom Cruise, and Jim Cameron producing. But I completely understand why they did it and I can’t argue, I can’t say they were wrong and I was right to take that position. I could never have their job because I would approve Mountains and many others, but I understand.

It should be noted that, although Prometheus had above-average opening day box office, it hasn't done all that well since, taking serious drops since release. As of this weekend, it wasn't even in the top ten (#14) and hasn't been for the past two weeks. Its domestic gross of $124 million is still less than its production budget of $130 million (which never includes the equally high advertising budget), and while it has made nearly $300 million when you include foreign receipts, the way studios get money back from foreign distribution makes that almost meaningless. Prometheus is not a bomb, but it's made all that it's going to make from its theatrical run and it'll have to rely on DVD and cable to really make a profit, which doesn't bode well as the start of an expensive franchise nor change common-sense wisdom on producing expensive R-rated non-sequels. It should also be noted that the "big name star" Tom Cruise-fronted Rock of Ages was a complete bomb, earning only $37 million domestic against a $75 million production budget.

The interview asked del Toro if he's interested in going back to Mountains:

DEADLINE: Will you still make At The Mountains of Madness, especially if Pacific Rim puts you near the category of those five directors you mentioned who can write their own tickets on big buck films?

DEL TORO: I want to see Prometheus first [there are plot similarities]. To me, Pacific Rim is a catalyst for so many things. You learn your craft little by little, and you do it publicly. You make mistakes in front of an audience. Make a wrong casting or editorial decision, and it’s all out in the open, like crashing a car in slow motion, publicly. Everybody can see your head bounce, your spine snap, and they comment on every single fracture. You’re giving interviews, or reading opinions. “Look at the way his wrist snapped! He’s never going to walk again the way his spine just broke!” You learn your craft that way and it’s rare that you can calculate or control it. You get lucky sometimes. I desire to direct big crazy movies and small crazy movies, and on Pan’s Labyrinth I was able to do that with some degree of control. Pacific Rim is the first time I have been able to articulate something that is purely entertaining, big and bold in this large format. I was incredibly aware of every choice, both creatively and fiscally. I stayed under budget and wanted that to be part of the experience. To be as bold and big as possible, but within the parameters I had agreed to. The narrative comes first, but I was a producer on this as well.

"I want to see Prometheus first" sounds a lot less definitive than his previous statements nixing Mountains based on plot similarities. On the other hand, looking at Pacific Rim as inspiring "so many things" could be taken that del Toro's interests are already elsewhere.

[ElijahWhateley]

A\There may be a chance for us all to contribute to a movie though.... - There are actors and filmmakers that are among YSDC contributors. Some people are pretty awesome with props. I know a producer, a few actors and I myself could write a pretty nifty script. - Go crowd, go! ( and Sandy P! - With his name behind a project how could it fail?!)

It sounds like you should look into joining the HPLHS, which basically does exactly that, right down to getting money from Sandy Peterson. You've probably heard of their silent "The Call of Cthulhu" or talkie "The Whisperer in Darkness" already.

[MarkSwift1976]

Yeah but he has been trying to get ATMOM made for nearly 20 years, and this seems like a silly reason to give up.

I think he may be searching for an out, and it was the easy excuse.

[milestcatoflove]

am I alone in wanting GDT's post-Pacific-Rim project to be the completion of his Hellboy trilogy?

I really wanna see all the ominous foreshadowing regarding Hellboy's apocalyptic destiny actually come to fruition on the big screen...

[Aklo]

To me it sounds like his (or perhpas the studios) major concern is the "big reveal" the fact that alien outsiders are in fact, the creators of the human race, and the exploration of those ramifications are a big part of both Moutains and Prometheus. To me, they feel like two entirely different works, but the hollywood execs, are worried about being the second ones out the gate, and thus accused of ripping off the front runner.

With a different, era, style of horror, thematic presentation, and so many other factors, I (and most people with a brain) would never confuse the two productions, but all the studio execs can see is, "Oh shoot! They stole our plot twist!" And thus fear for any success...

[ElijahWhateley]

Which is amusing, because technically Aliens vs Predator did the "same plot twist" before Prometheus, but the execs didn't cancel Prometheus or ask for a rewrite.

[Mr_Lin]

Which is amusing, because technically Aliens vs Predator did the "same plot twist" before Prometheus, but the execs didn't cancel Prometheus or ask for a rewrite.

If I understand correctly RS had carte blanche to ask for a rewrite including more of that sort of thing. He seems quite interested in all that ancient astronauts stuff.

[ElijahWhateley]

If I understand correctly RS had carte blanche to ask for a rewrite including more of that sort of thing. He seems quite interested in all that ancient astronauts stuff.

According to him, he hasn't watched any movies in the franchise other than his own and Aliens. Also, AvP wasn't a major blockbuster - honestly, I've never seen it - so it was a pretty safe bet for the studio to ignore it.

[OptikaNET]

Actually Giger was involved, but only in a minor way. He contributed the Mural they see on the roof of the chamber.

Kind Regards
Dave

[glyph]

Ultimately adapting any of Lovecraft's "big' sci-fi novellas would be futile because as Prometheus shows, these ideas have long since been mined out and drained of their vitality. Producing something from the more horror or investigation-slanted stories would be better.

[Afraid of the dark]

Prometheus was a high budget Sci Fi with some great scenes, but as people have mentioned, it was God awful in the realism and actions of the characters. I was dissapointed, people I know who saw it were dissapointed. There was so much it could have been, but wasn't. I need a film to fit together properly, and this one didn't. When top scientists, act like kids in the school lab, then pshhh. No, not for me. The same scenes could have occurred with a different storyboard, with perhaps a terrorist faction, or various factions, on board for whatever reason. Shame.

[ScS]

Indeed, Afraid, Prometheus had all the budget and talent to make a good sci-fi movie, and lacked only a decent script. The story was flat out awful and did not explore the supposedly cosmic themes of creation that it purported to discuss. The whole film became less of a lesson on creation and responsibility than it did as an abject lesson of proper procedures for quarantine and exploration.

I don't think these ideas have lost their vitality, it think that they need to be explored by screen writers and directors who are capable of writing believable characters rather than two-dimensional segues for CGI monsters. Having watched From Dusk till Dawn, I'd say I'm still satisfied with this current situation.

[Afraid of the dark]

I'd agree. Proper procedures for quarantine, a friend watched the film with his long term girlfriend who is completely not interested in Sci Fi, but even she balked at various scenes.