Director, producer, and writer Guillermo del Toro has been involved in the making of some truly iconic movies, and his touch is always recognizable. Recently, the Oscar winner commented on the long-lost At The Mountains of Madness project that he refuses to let go of anytime soon.

Known for prominent works in the horror and fantasy genre, most notably with films like Pan’s Labyrinth and his Oscar-winning fantasy drama The Shape of Water, del Toro has also been involved in a few high-profile projects that didn’t quite pan out. One of which, being an adaptation of a story by one of the OG horror-fantasy writers, H.P. Lovecraft. Though the At The Mountains of Madness project was thought to be shelved after 15 years of nothing happening, del Toro says he’s not ready to call it quits yet.

In a recent interview with The Kingcast podcast, del Toro says not to count the project out yet and that he’s working on a rewrite of the original script. And much to the joy of his biggest supporters, he says he wants to scale it down and make it really weird instead of trying to appeal to the Hollywood machine. He also says that in part due to the aging of the project, and in part due to just wanting something different, Tom Cruise will likely not be involved and he would prefer to work with some unknown actors.

del Toro originally penned a script for H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness in 2006, with Cruise slated for a starring role. Due to the nature of both of these men, they seem to be a match made in heaven. However, del Toro ran into issues getting the project picked up initially and then later had problems with Universal because he refused to censor his script, and he wanted a budget deemed too high. Thus, it’s a project that just hasn’t gotten off the ground.

Given what del Toro is alluding to in this interview, it’s looking like this film has transformed from a Hollywood blockbuster to a weird horror movie, which is a concept many horror lovers and del Toro fans will be happy about. Though he still hasn’t written a script and this project likely still won’t come to fruition for a good while, it’s worth getting excited about.

Nightmare Alley hits theaters on December 17, 2021.

Source: The Kingcast