Every filmmaker has a dream project that seems to stall in development for years, decades, and sometimes forever. For Guillermo del Toro, that has been his long-gestating adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s famed 1936 novella “At the Mountains of Madness”.
The story follows explorers in Antarctica who uncover the remains of highly evolved creatures, neither plant nor animal. Investigating a gigantic mountain range, they come upon an abandoned ancient city. Their explorations underground cause something to stir from its slumber.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker spent many years struggling to get the project going, at one point coming incredibly close with Tom Cruise to star and James Cameron to produce back in the mid-2000s.
However, a $150 million budget and an R-rating were too much of a risk at the time for Universal Pictures, who balked and scrapped it. Del Toro, however, remains committed to making the movie whenever he gets the chance.
Today, del Toro has released a never-before-seen CGI test that ILM did while they were prepping the movie all those years ago. The 25-second clip is an entirely 3D animated sequence made as a test to show what ILM could do with the VFX on the creatures.
del Toro indicated last year he wants to rewrite his original script to be doable as a cheaper and weirder work that a streamer might warm to. The filmmaker is coming off raves for Netflix’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” series and has a new take on “Pinocchio” coming to the streamer in December.
