Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness could become a stop-motion animated film

At the top of the list of favorite films that never made it into production is director Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the HP Lovecraft novella In the mountains of madness, which once formed at Universal, starred Tom Cruise and produced James Cameron. This project fell through because del Toro intended to make an R-rated film and Universal insisted that it should be rated PG-13. That was eleven years ago, but del Toro never gave up on the idea of ​​one day bringing a version of At the Mountains of Madness to the big screen. And during a recent interview with IndieWirehe revealed that he was thinking about doing it as a stop-motion animated film.

Del Toro told IndieWire that he spoke to visual effects artist Phil Tippett, who directed the bizarre stop-motion animated film crazy godabout bringing In the mountains of madness on the screen in stop motion. He said, “It would be ideal to do mountains of madness as stop motion. They look at animation more happily than live action. It’s almost a hypnotic act, and it makes the relationship with the story more intimate.“

Lovecraft’s novella (get a copy HERE) tells the story of a disastrous expedition to the Antarctic continent in September 1930 and what was being discovered there by a group of explorers led by narrator Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout the story, Dyer details a series of previously untold events in hopes of deterring another group of explorers wishing to return to the continent. During his explanation, Dyer recounts how he led a group of scholars from Miskatonic University on a previous expedition to Antarctica, during which they discovered ancient ruins and a dangerous secret beyond a mountain range higher than the Himalayas.

Del Toro recently produced a horror anthology series called Guillermo del Toro’s cabinet of curiosities for Netflix, and while he waits to hear whether or not the streamer wants a second season, he has another project releasing December 9 through Netflix: a stop-motion version of Pinocchio which he co-directed with Mark Gustafson. You can read our 10/10 rating from Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro HERE.