Apparently it’s Guillermo del Toro week for me here as I reported on his black & white film he plans to shoot before Pacific Rim 2 just yesterday. In part of it’s week long rollout of an exclusive interview with Del Toro, Collider released the particulars of the interview regarding his long anticipated adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story At the Mountains of Madness. We got close to this film getting made right after his exit from The Hobbit films, but it fell apart as Universal didn’t want to spend $100 million+ for an R rated horror film. Now that the PG-13 market is much more flexible than it was 5 years ago, Del Toro thinks he may have a shot of making it work in that rating. Read his comments below:
That’s actually exactly what I’m thinking. The way I’m thinking is, PG-13 goes a long way. It’s not that the novel is graphic, but people forget that there are crucial elements in the novel that are pretty horrific. Like the human autopsy, you know? I think that’s a dark moment. So what I would like to do is shoot it, as dark as it is, in an unrated cut and a PG-13 cut. Ideally they would be released simultaneously if that’s at all possible. We could release one [cut] in a certain format and the other in a different format with the hopes that we can offer more intense moments in one cut and equally intense moments but without graphic content in the other cut. Lovecraft was famous for suggestion, and a lot of the piece can suggest, but there are [certain moments] you need to show. Part of it is budget, part of it is rating. The one thing I’ll say is that at this stage for me, Mountains is not made. So I’d rather make it in a way that doesn’t compromise the content, or not do it. And, in the last few years, what has changed is that I’ve seen PG-13 films that are very intense. For me Life of Pi, the first 25 minutes of that movie were really very intense with the violence on the boat and the sinking. I came to think, “you know what? It is possible to go to places that are intense but still have a strong appeal for a rating.” That, I think, is the main thing that changed. The only thing I know is that I have two studios that like the project very much, which is Universal and Legendary. Legendary came very close to financing and Universal came famously close to financing and we were very much getting there. So I think that there’s a chance we’re still keeping it alive. What normally happens is I have stacks and stacks of beautiful designs. I have 30, 40, 50 pieces of key art. I have maquettes. I have concept art. I have hundreds of storyboards. And of all the things that have gone undone so far, the one that I would most like to share with the world is Mountains.
Being both a big fan of Del Toro and also having read the wonderful story this film is based on, I can definitely agree that this is a film that cannot be toned down in any capacity without compromising what makes it so elusively terrifying to begin with. This is a film where Del Toro is not just the only director who would make it – he’s the only director that could. We’ve heard Del Toro talk up this film plenty of times before with no payoff so it’s easy to chalk this up to the same old story, but at the same time I’m glad to hear that not only is he committed to one day making this film, but committed to making it without compromise. All we can do with this project at this point is speculate, though I would be down to see an unrated cut of the film in addition to the theatrical version. Hopefully Crimson Peak, Pacific Rim 2 and his untitled black & white film do well enough at the box office to get him enough studio good-will to fund this film.
Source: Collider
