Yesterday brought the unfortunate news that Guillermo del Toro has hit another roadblock in his mission to get HP Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness on to the screen. But Lovecraft’s loss is Legendary Pictures’ gain, as the project that the company was trying to lure him for, monster movie Pacific Rim, is now officially his next project.
It's not a big shocker, since del Toro has been deeply involved in all the early stages of the film. Still, Legendary sent out an enthusiastic press release today, one that was quickly picked up by Deadline. With pre-production already rumbling along, del Toro is set to start filming in September, working from a script by Clash of the Titans’ Travis Beacham.
"We started developing Pacific Rim a while ago with the mad passion and enthusiasm of a project unwatched and unchecked by politics or comparisons. We designed and shepherded the movie we want to make,” says the director in the statement. “We start shooting in September and we hit the ground running because we are so in sync. My partnership with Legendary represents, both in scale and creative demands, a huge step forward for me."
A lot about the film – besides that it concerns huge creatures – is still shrouded in secrecy. But though we’re sad to see Madness, a project GDT has been passionate about for years, hit yet another stumbling block, word that he’s directing something is always good news.
And what of Madness? A lot of speculation arose as to why it failed to gel over at Universal, and now the director has gone on the record with Deadline to talk over the issues involved.
“Since the day of the decision, I haven’t had a face to face with them,” says del Toro about the relative silence from executives once the word came down that Universal wouldn’t be pushing forward quite as quickly as hoped. “We’ve exchanged a few phone calls. In my mind, we were given the parameters of a budget and screenplay, and I was given the chance by the studio to create a visual presentation. They were blown away by the visual presentation, they openly admitted to loving the screenplay, saying it was dead on. And we hit the target on the budget they gave us, not a figure I arrived at. The week before the decision, I was scouting in the border of Canada and Alaska. We were a week away from opening offices in Toronto. We were crewed up, and frankly, I am as puzzled as most people are. One of the biggest, biggest points for me with this movie was the scope and the R, going hand in hand."
And what of that pesky rating? “It was the subject of multiple conversations all the way through December. The definitive answer was known in December after a big meeting, when we were given the new parameters of budget and rewrites. We proceeded over the next few months to hit those parameters.”
He also makes mention of the fact that he’s still finding out if Universal will permit him to shop the project elsewhere (such as to Fox, where producer James Cameron has a good relationship). So while the Mountains are silent for now, we wouldn’t ever rule out del Toro finally reaching them…