The greatest movies never made: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘At the Mountains of Madness’
Passion projects can be a tricky thing, and Guillermo del Toro‘s At the Mountains of Madness is enduring proof that not even massively successful directors have the ability to realise the films they’ve been dreaming of making for the longest time.
As the only person in history to have won Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, and ‘Best Animated Feature’, del Toro is one of the most well-known auteurs in the industry. He can work in smaller, more intimate productions such as large-scale blockbuster epics.
Almost every single one of his features has been fantastical in one way or another, with his recurring motifs of otherworldly creatures, intense atmosphere, eye-popping production design, vivid colours, and explorations of assorted manifestations of trauma. This makes him the ideal candidate to helm a lavish adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novella that marries sci-fi with horror and steeps it deeply in mythology and folklore.
If there was source material that seems tailor-made for del Toro’s sensibilities, then At the Mountains of Madness is it. He knows it. He’s been trying to make it happen for 20 years at this point, but whenever it felt like things could be gaining serious steam, the wheels fall off, and he’s unceremoniously tossed right back to square one.
First announced at DreamWorks in 2004, it was put on hold when del Toro signed up to direct The Hobbit, which he ended up dropping out of. It was resurrected at Universal in 2010, only for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus to throw a spanner into the works by hitting many of the same beats. He even pitched it to Netflix after collaborating with the streaming service on the stop-motion Pinocchio and anthology series Cabinet of Curiosities, only to be denied yet again.
The most enticing version of At the Mountains of Madness – and the one that should have happened – was set to feature two of Hollywood’s biggest heavyweights. The intention was to craft the film as an R-rated epic shot in native 3D with a budget of $150million, which is admittedly the sort of thing that causes much consternation among studio executives concerned with the bottom line above all else.
However, James Cameron was set to produce through his Lightstorm Entertainment banner to have At the Mountains of Madness utilise the same cutting-edge filming techniques as Avatar, with Tom Cruise being lined up to star in the lead role of geologist William Dyer. Cameron, Cruise, and del Toro? That’s a hell of a combination, and yet it still wasn’t enough.
A dark, foreboding hybrid of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi being captured through the technology that yielded the highest-grossing release in history, anchored by the biggest movie star on the planet, and directed by somebody who’d scooped the two most prestigious prizes the business has to offer? That’s a slam dunk if ever there was one, but somehow wasn’t able to shake the bean-counters from their stupor and pull the trigger.
At the Mountains of Madness easily carries the potential to be del Toro’s magnum opus, one that would mark the culmination of his entire career to date. The sinister undertones of Cronos, the gothic trappings of The Devil’s Backbone, the blockbuster set pieces of Blade II, Hellboy, and Pacific Rim, the resonant themes of Pan’s Labyrinth, the period-set terrors of Crimson Peak, and the classic creature feature stylings of The Shape of Water all combined into one single production. However, it tragically remains lodged firmly in the deepest, darkest recesses of development hell.
