Del Toro to Direct At the Mountains of Madness

During his announcement last week that he will be working on a Haunted Mansion film for Disney, Guillermo del Toro hinted that his next directorial effort will be announced very shortly, and will be scary to boot.  According to Deadline, he  will finally make what some have called his labor of love, HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, with none other than James Cameron on to produce.

The tale itself is set in the 1930’s, when a group of scientists visit the South Pole and discover the true and gruesome origin of mankind.

The film has been a pet project of del Toro’s now for the last 13 years and will almost definitely be his most ambitious project to date.  At the Mountains of Madness will be shot in 3D.  Del Toro and Matthew Robbins are in the process of rewriting a script from a draft written by both years ago.  According to Deadline, Universal Pictures has picked up the film, partially due to Cameron’s involvement.

In an interview with Coming Soon, del Toro stated how hard the studio sell for At the Mountains of Madness has been:

“With Mountains of Madness, there are two things that I’ve been battling all these years: period and R-rated, and a very, very tough ending, so the studio is very scared of period obviously, very scared of the budget and an R-rating. And the first conversation I always have is, ‘Does it have to be R?’ and I go, ‘Yes.’ ‘Does it have to be period? Does it have to be Antarctica?’ ‘Yes.’”

The big budget horror film will probably begin pre-production within the next few weeks with filming to possibly start next summer.