Guillermo del Toro talks At the Mountains of Madness

For years, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has been trying to make his dream project, an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s arctic terror tale AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. And while it’s closer (thanks to Universal and producer James Cameron), it’s still a dream.

As del Toro tells Deadline: “We are not green lit, we are still budgeting and designing, and we are partners on this. I believe in my heart we are going to be making this movie in June of next year. We are budgeting the creatures and met with Spectral Motion and ILM, where Dennis Muren told me the sweetest words ever when he said, no one has ever seen monsters like this. That was truly one of the highlights of my fat life, a demigod like Muren saying that.”

At least he sounds confident, as should an award-winning filmmaker with history’s highest grossing director in his corner. As for how the 3D aspects will be incorporated, GdT says “It’s hard to say without spoiling it. The way the creatures are rendered and done is going to bring forth an aspect of Lovecraft that has not been done on live action films. Part of my speech was, I’m putting all the chips I have accumulated in 20 years as a director, betting them on a single number.  This is not just a movie and then move on to the next. It’s do or die time for me.”

The filmmaker also addresses the script draft that’s been the subject of recent online reviews (“The screenplay that is on the internet is an old screenplay, and the one I gave to Jim and Universal is different“) and talks about his director’s cut of the giant insect film MIMIC: “It’s not exactly the movie I wanted to do, but it definitely healed a lot of wounds. As soon as Miramax goes one way or the other as a company, those DVDs will come out. I am happy with the cut.”

You should check out the whole interview, where del Toro also cheerfully and candidly offers his opinions on producing, monsters, the state of specialty films, and of the risks being taken by certain filmmakers today.