After he left The Hobbit, it didn’t seem possible that Guillermo Del Toro would manage to find a film that could excite as much fevered anticipation, but while recently announced At The Mountains Of Madness may not have quite as wide a following as Middle Earth, it’s already one of the biggest things around for film fans.
Not only is it going to be directed by Del Toro, but it’s based on an HP Lovecraft story that fans have been clamouring for a film version of for decades. And if that weren’t enough, James Cameron is going to produce the 3D pic, making this a bit of a dream team. Now of course it’s time to speculate about the cast. Collider say they’ve got a source who’s given them the skinny on the current thinking.
Apparently while Del Toro is considering numerous options, currently at the top of his list is Tom Cruise. However Universal have other ideas, and would prefer (the presumably much cheaper) James McAvoy for the lead role. Chris Pine’s name is also being thrown around (as it is for pretty much every movie now), but he’d be unlikely to have the time for the film, as the Star Trek sequel is expected to start gearing up for production around the same time as Mountain Of Madness, next May.
At the moment it’s way to early to say who’ll get the role, and it’s not even clear whether Del Toro or Universal have even spoken to Cruise and McAvoy. However I think we can assume this is just the beginning of a lot of stories for what is fast become one of the most anticipated movies around.
In case you don’t know, Mountains of Madness is the tale of a scientific expedition to the South Pole, which uncovers hints that the true origin of mankind may have been gods from another planet. However bad things start to happen when those gods are reawakened. And just to make you a bit more excited, Jame Cameron recently described the film to Wired as, “an epically scaled horror film and we havent seen anything like that in a really long time – I guess since Aliens.”