Odds are about 1:99 that one day in the future I will be able to walk into a theater, smack down some bucks and say, "a ticket for the 6:30 At the Mountains of Madness please," and then actually sit down in a dimly lit, stadium seating theater to watch this movie.
Creative Director
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Del Toro's been trying to get this movie made for years... the trick has always been getting someone to help bankroll it. And I can't think of a better producer than James Cameron for this movie, honestly.
A director who's never made a movie I didn't love working with the man who created the two most successful movies of all time to make an adaptation of my favorite author's best story? I'm pretty pleased with this situation. Here's hoping it's fact and not rumor!
The Fact the James Cameron has put his name on it and Del Toro pulled out of the hobbit make me think that he movie may really happen. I was looking foward to Del Toro doing the Hobbit but this Might be better.
IIRC, Del Toro has stated that there will not be a love story spliced into the plot, so there's that worry out of the way.
So who do we want for Shadow Over Innsmouth? M. Night Shayamalan or Michael Bay?
NOT^(2n+1) M. Night Shayamalan
I don't think the Shadow Over Innsmouth needs a Green House.
So who do we want for Shadow Over Innsmouth? M. Night Shayamalan or Michael Bay?
This was supposed to be funny "nervous ha ha", right?
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Considering del Toro chose not to commit to this at Comic Con, I'd be careful about getting our hopes up. I certainly hope it's true, but waiting for confirmation from the man himself.
IIRC, Del Toro has stated that there will not be a love story spliced into the plot, so there's that worry out of the way.
So who do we want for Shadow Over Innsmouth? M. Night Shayamalan or Michael Bay?
NOT^(2n+1) M. Night Shayamalan
x=2^(n-1)+{2^n}
spin = n MOD 2 xor n(max) MOD 2
In my post, n should only take on integer values, and I consciously chose not to say that because for those who got it it wasn't needed. (2n+1) is the *definition* of an odd number {..., -3, -1, 1, 3, 5, 7, ...} when n is integer; my personal interpretation of the word 'NOT' multiplied an odd number of times is still logically 'NOT'. So, my cry uses "double negatives" -- NOT^(2n+1) M. Night Shayamalan with an (maybe) infinite *odd number* of NOTs (if n an int goes to inf.); which is a huge, huge NO WAY.
I couldn't relate x and spin in your stuff. What's up..
3D? Why?
Because now (almost) every movie is 3D so they can charge more money to see it.
It's new! It's big! It's awesome!
It's BS.
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Speaking of: James Cameron talks about At the Mountains of Madness. It's a short segment, and he does mention at the beginning that 'the deal isn't 100% yet', but sounds promising.
As for being in 3D, I could take it or leave it. I would probably prefer 2D, but whether you loved or hated Avatar, one thing it did was show that 3D doesn't have to be about the 'gimmick' shots.
With Del Toro to make it 'feel' like Lovecraft and Cameron to keep the 3D from being cheesy, I think it will be a great experience.
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IIRC, Del Toro has stated that there will not be a love story spliced into the plot, so there's that worry out of the way.
So who do we want for Shadow Over Innsmouth? M. Night Shayamalan or Michael Bay?
It had something of a love story spliced in (not to mention some gratuitous T&A), but I kind of liked Stuart Gordon's treatment.
Am I the only one who just thinks this story reallllyyy won't translate well to film, at least not without major changes?
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I've been saying that for years, ever since I heard he wanted to do it. A faithful interpretation would be a bomb of ridiculous proportions.Can you elaborate?
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness/full
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness/fullI've been saying that for years, ever since I heard he wanted to do it. A faithful interpretation would be a bomb of ridiculous proportions.Can you elaborate?
I have to agree with the naysayers. HPL in general does not transfer to film-much of his stories are description, which a film will gloss over in a few shots. I love HPL, but his movies don't work as films. Or they end up being horribly altered to fit the screen, which is worse. Del Toro is better than many other directors to attempt this, but I think it is a bridge too far for film. I think to make this work, they'll have to change the story greatly.
Certainly, adaptations in the past 10 years are generally much more faithful than they were in the 80's and early 90's. I'm still not sure really how LOTR came out as amazingly as it did, but there have been more movies like Lurking Fear, Reanimator, The Unnamable, Conan the Destroyer, and Red Sonja to give me much faith.
I don't necessarily think that Lovecraft in general is impossible to transfer to film, but The Mountains of Madness...I just can't concieve of it being both faithful and filmable. I think Call of Cthulhu could make a great film (and in fact it does, as the HP Lovecraft Historical Society proved).
Don't forget to mention the their upcoming Whisperer in Darkness movie as well. I am looking forward to the first talkie by them.
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http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness/fullI've been saying that for years, ever since I heard he wanted to do it. A faithful interpretation would be a bomb of ridiculous proportions.Can you elaborate?
I've read the novella at least a dozen times since I was a kid. I think it's possible to make a good film. I also think some things will have to be changed, ala LotR.
I was asking for some specifics of why you think it's likely to bomb.
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I've read the novella at least a dozen times since I was a kid. I think it's possible to make a good film. I also think some things will have to be changed, ala LotR.I was asking for some specifics of why you think it's likely to bomb.
I'm not the OP, but I'll take a shot at it. Look at Hellboy, which I think can be taken as Lovecraftian in background (at least). Del Toro did a fine job with it, but it is at heart an action movie. Lots of CGI monsters flying through the air, cigar-chomping taciturn hero, big climactic faceoff between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys...we know how this works. Yes, del Toro handled Mignola's Lovecraft references and homages in a way that showed his appreciation of the source material, but the movie--like the source material--is pretty slam-bang.
Compare to AtMoM. (Spoilers ahead, in case you need the warning.) To start with, there are no Bad Guys. (Well, the shoggoth might qualify, but leave it out for now.) There are humans trying to learn something about the world, and there are the star-headed aliens who just want to go home. OK, dissecting people and dogs isn't exactly the sort of behavior you'd like to see in a neighbor, but they're not malevolent.
Next, the level of action. With the exception of the chase at the end, this is a very understated sort of story. It is a horrific story in part because of the ramifications of what Dyer and Danforth discover in the city--not only is humanity nowhere near the pinnacle of creation, our ancestors were created as a joke by the degenerate scions of the Elder Things. Then there's the related tension as Dyer & Danforth come to realize that the sled they're tracking *isn't* being used by the missing man and dog from the camp.
Finally, the ending--the confrontation with the shoggoth, and whatever Danforth sees from the plane as they're taking off. I can't see a modern movie refusing to show the final horror, and I *really* can't see protagonists in a modern movie escaping from the nasty evil slime creature by nothing more than luck. No, I can't see anything less than flamethrowers or high explosives.
On the plus side, I think del Toro would do a fine job of capturing the feel of the city. I just don't think the rest of the story would fare as well under the demands of the producers for a decent rate of return.
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I'm not the OP, but I'll take a shot at it. Look at Hellboy, which I think can be taken as Lovecraftian in background (at least). Del Toro did a fine job with it, but it is at heart an action movie. Lots of CGI monsters flying through the air, cigar-chomping taciturn hero, big climactic faceoff between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys...we know how this works. Yes, del Toro handled Mignola's Lovecraft references and homages in a way that showed his appreciation of the source material, but the movie--like the source material--is pretty slam-bang.
I've read the novella at least a dozen times since I was a kid. I think it's possible to make a good film. I also think some things will have to be changed, ala LotR.I was asking for some specifics of why you think it's likely to bomb.
Really? Hellboy? That's your point of reference for Guillermo del Toro directing AtMoM?? Yeah, I'd be concerned if that was what I was going on too. (I really didn't like the movies. Not that they were bad, just not my thing.) You should at lest watch Pan's Labyrinth, and I'd strongly recommend Cronos and The Devil's Backbone as well. Just because a guy made a few action/superhero movies doesn't mean that's all he's capable of.
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Really? Hellboy? That's your point of reference for Guillermo del Toro directing AtMoM?? Yeah, I'd be concerned if that was what I was going on too. (I really didn't like the movies. Not that they were bad, just not my thing.) You should at lest watch Pan's Labyrinth, and I'd strongly recommend Cronos and The Devil's Backbone as well. Just because a guy made a few action/superhero movies doesn't mean that's all he's capable of.
I've read the novella at least a dozen times since I was a kid. I think it's possible to make a good film. I also think some things will have to be changed, ala LotR.I was asking for some specifics of why you think it's likely to bomb.
I'm not the OP, but I'll take a shot at it.
<<...>>
I don't doubt it--what I worry about is that according to Box Office Mojo, the worldwide grosses for those movies are as follows (I don't know if this includes DVD sales):
Hellboy: $59.6M
HB II: $76M
Pan's Labyrinth: $37.6M
Cronos: <$1M
The Devil's Backbone: <$1M
I've only seen the first one of these, but I've heard enough good things about Cronos that I have no doubt GdT is more than capable of doing AtMoM. But. Any producer worth their salt is going to look at those numbers and tell the man to make it look more like the big moneymakers. Even Pan's Labyrinth made only half what Hellboy II did--granted, Cronos and The Devil's Backbone cost quite a bit less to make than the glossier trio at the head of the list, and what's interesting is that the only one of the trio to earn out in theatrical release was Pan's Labyrinth. So if he had Alfonso Cuaron for a producer, I'd be more optimistic. He's got James Cameron, though, who thinks this is going to be epically scaled horror. This doesn't leave me with a very good feeling about the movie.
Simply put, GDT might actually make a decent version of this movie, complete with appropriate creepiness, although it does strike me as a story that just works better in print. Regardless of whether he can "capture" HPL's feel, if it's true to the story, this is a movie that would not do well. I don't see people lining up to see it, because it's just not what mainstream America wants to see. As a result, if it's done well, the production costs would far outweigh the potential profit.
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What is weird though is that THe story says they find weird creatures - but that is a halucination and everyone went nuts. Perhaps the final creature and the city is also a halucination and it is just more human...That would make 'The Mountains of Madness' very weird and confusing to the audience most wouldnt understand why the humans went nuts and saw weird crap.
I love Del Toro, I love lovecraft, I love James Cameron.
There is no one i would rather see bring 'At the mountains of madness' to life than Del Toro.
I am a little worried about the 3D thing,as only two films i have seen have in anyway benifit from it. One being coraline, though it only really helps in a couple of places and Avatar.
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Lovecraft really hasn't been given any real good screen treatments. Half of the movies out there are only Lovecraft in name and reference. In the last couple years there were movies released that borrowed the title of a short story an put his name on the box cover. And both were like bad Saw ripoffs.
Try this.
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Del Toro is finally talking about the film himself. Now, I'm excited.
There are several clips on youtube from a Q&A session he did in Portland, OR. One clip is mostly about Disney's Haunted Mansion, but at about 3:55 he talks about At the Mountains of Madness. Somewhere in this clip he says he has a part in it written specifically for Ron Perlman. Also the end of that one he talks about working with child actors, funny stuff. :-D
He also talks about it in an MTVNEWS article last week.
He is also working with THQ to make a 'Lovecraftian' video game, perhaps due out in 2013. It should be a part of a series.
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Del Toro was on G4's Attack of the Show today talking about his new vampire book. At about 4:30 the topics changes to At the Mountains of Madness.
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This article was linked on Mr. Jacobs' FB wall this afternoon.
He used one of the same lines about adaptations he had said in the videos I linked a couple posts up, but edited himself a bit.
What he had said previously was:
"You are loyal to the adaptation of the tale to another medium. I think the worst thing you can do is be slavish to the original document and then destroy the movie. You're not going to get a medal for being loyal. You're going to get a medal for making a good movie. I always say, jokingly, that adapting somebody else's work is like marrying a widow. You have to be respectful of the memory of the late husband but at some point you have to have sex."
It's dead, Jim
Well not dead so much as dreaming in eternal R'lyeh. There is a real possibility of shopping it to another studio but my guess is unless Cameron/del Toro come up with a sizeable chunk as producers it may not get going, granted Cameron has convinced backers to do that in the recent past. I agree that PG-13 would not work but I can understand a studios reluctance to bankroll that big of an R rated film with the shift away from R rated films commercial success
It's dead, JimWell not dead so much as dreaming in eternal R'lyeh. There is a real possibility of shopping it to another studio but my guess is unless Cameron/del Toro come up with a sizeable chunk as producers it may not get going, granted Cameron has convinced backers to do that in the recent past. I agree that PG-13 would not work but I can understand a studios reluctance to bankroll that big of an R rated film with the shift away from R rated films commercial success
There are a fair few mythos fans out there, who want to see this film made. Perhapes it would be worth trying to fund raise for it in the community. Sort of like the biggest value sell-a-band style funding project yet conceived.
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It's dead, JimWell not dead so much as dreaming in eternal R'lyeh. There is a real possibility of shopping it to another studio but my guess is unless Cameron/del Toro come up with a sizeable chunk as producers it may not get going, granted Cameron has convinced backers to do that in the recent past. I agree that PG-13 would not work but I can understand a studios reluctance to bankroll that big of an R rated film with the shift away from R rated films commercial success
Maybe Cameron could use some of the bazillions of dollars he made off of Avatar to fund the movie himself.
There are a fair few mythos fans out there, who want to see this film made. Perhapes it would be worth trying to fund raise for it in the community. Sort of like the biggest value sell-a-band style funding project yet conceived.
After the recent outpouring for Firefly requiring FOX to state pretty unequivocally that it wasn't going to happen after people starting signing up to pay for a new season. I think there may be a logic for a new business model in movie making, a re-blossoming of "mom & pop" investing.
I certainly know I would invest in Cameron/Del Toro's brainchild
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Lovecraft really hasn't been given any real good screen treatments. Half of the movies out there are only Lovecraft in name and reference. In the last couple years there were movies released that borrowed the title of a short story an put his name on the box cover. And both were like bad Saw ripoffs.
There are a couple well-done flicks that aren't explicitly Lovecraftian in plot but are most definitely homages and borrow enough from his writings that the parallels are obvious.
* In the Mouth of Madness* The Resurrected (this one is a pretty faithful update of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)
* Lord of Illusions
* Any of the Reanimator flicks.
* Cast a Deadly Spell, which does Lovecraftian comedy and doesn't bomb it.
Any of those are worth seeing if you can find them (Netflix has most).
I felt this one had some of the right stuff.
I felt this one had some of the right stuff.
I will go with
Dagon: Spanish film but captures that Innsmouth feel very well
Ktulu: even with the wierd Tori Spelling cameo captured a good deal of the flavor
Masters Of Horror: Dreams in the Witch House: It does take some liberties particualrly the ending.