At the Mountains of Madness is No More

At the Mountains of Madness, long-time dream project of acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, is dead.

This comes after a string of news over the past 24 hours that began with claims of an official June start-date on the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation and signing of Tom Cruise to star, as per I09, concluding with confirmation from both Collider and director del Toro himself to the Criterion Cast pronouncing it's death.

Here lies the aftermath of that decision. We're hearing loud cries of Universal being "chicken-shitted" for rejecting a project large in ambition, talent (along with del Toro and possibly Cruise, James Cameron was on-board to produce) and, in what ultimately proved to be its killing stroke, cost.

No need of reiterating what Drew McWeeny said other than how dead-on he is. That studio has taken financial and creative risks the last couple of years that didn't pan out on their bottom line, and now their new ownership under Comcast we can expect next-to-none of that. It's what I say about Paramount fast-tracking that G.I. Joe sequel. Yeah, you might not like "the Justin Bieber guy" directing. But under these extraordinary circumstances, there wouldn’t be another G.I. Joe to look forward to next August. Be grateful you're getting that.

Alas it's all "Fuck so-and-so for not doing exactly what I want them to!" reactions from the typically childish fan-community. Such mentality also shows the overall lack-of-thinking from fandom who takes everything at face value, refuse to dissect and process information to form one’s own opinion and never willing to be open-minded when "outside the box" filmmakers or actors are chosen for big properties because they don't fit their pre-conceived notions (i.e. "So-and-so looks the part so that makes them the perfect choice!") Thinking doesn’t hurt, children.

The general movie-going-public outnumbers hardcore fans, 100-to-1 if not more. It's what those people (whom I often refer to as "John & Jane Doe Movie-Goer") choose to spend their coin to see who studios typically pay attention to, as they should, and there's zero evidence to suggest said people would pay to see something like At the Mountains of Madness. After a string of costly-failures, Universal just plain can't afford to that another risk like that.

As for Mr. del Toro, we all feel bad for him, but he will move on. The man has talent, and as we've heard in the past practically had to fight off big offers with a stick over the years; Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, a Wizard of Oz project at Legendary Pictures, Superman: The Man of Steel and The Hobbit which as we all know he actually said "Yes" and two years working on before understandably bowing when it appeared a real start-date wasn’t in sight.

It appears that his next project will indeed be Pacific Rim first broken by Latino Review, thus continuing his love for big-screen monsters. Good for him. Perhaps with a couple of commercial hits under his belt, he’ll gain the clout to commander the budget and creative freedom required for At Mountains of Madness.

That time just isn't now.