When I was on the set of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Guillermo del Toro whipped out his laptop and showed me some footage from the Troll Market set. In the background of one scene was a couple of guys in green body suits walking formation. ‘That,’ Guillermo said. ‘Is going to be a Lovecraftian monster.’
Lovecraft’s been on his mind for years now; that’s how long he’s been trying to get At the Mountains of Madness off the ground. At one point it looked pretty good for Warner Bros, but now Latino Review is saying they’ve heard (and you can take this to the bank, as Kelvin at Latino Review is in tight with Guillermo) that Universal is getting the film, and that it’ll be Guillermo’s next.
I don’t think this is going to be a pre-strike picture, since that would kill Guillermo. He’ll be doing post on Hellboy II for much of early next year, and then he told me that plans on taking a little time off after that. If the strike happened he said he’d eventually go off and do another Spanish film, but it was obvious at the time that Mountains was what he really wanted.
The great news is that this is going to be with the studio he’s currently working with – this seems to indicate to me that they like what they see in Hellboy II, since At the Mountains of Madness would probably be just as expensive and maybe about half as commercial, which is saying something. That’s just based on the original story though; I don’t know what GDT has up his sleeve, but it surely is something exciting and awesome. And frankly, if anybody is going to be bringing eldritch horrors to life, it’s got to be this guy.
Latino Review says that GDT’s take on Tarzan is still on the table, but the script isn’t ready yet.