asianxcore

Major bummer

SethDLH

Supermallet

I'm friends with the writer of Pacific Rim, so I'd love to see Del Toro make it.

islandclaws

I'd much rather see ATMOM get made, but if PR can prime the pump, so to speak, then I'm ok with this. Besides, it's del Toro playing with monsters... can't really go wrong with that.

brayzie

I keep getting his name confused with Benecio Del Toro. When I first read this I thought, "That's cool that the actor is a fan of Lovecraft but wasn't this supposed to be directed by a well known director..."

This is great news. I bet this movie will be like The Thing, but a period piece, and even better.

brayzie

Wait, I didn't read the rest after the first few posts.

Dammit, this is horrible news.

I'm glad to know that Del Toro has a real passion for the source material and was trying to do make keep it true to what makes the story unique instead of just modernizing everything and using hot actors.

The closest thing I've seen to a good Lovecraft themed movie, in theaters would be IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. It was a good film, and really had a disturbing vibe to it, even if it wasn't based directly off of any particular stories.

I guess Cloverfield would be like a Cthulhu movie. It's too bad big budget R movies aren't profitble like they used to.

Dr. DVD

I think that if both Cameron and DelToro really want to get this movie made with the R rating in tact, they should get foreign financing and only ask Universal to foot the bill for distribution. I see a movie like this doing really well overseas, as DelToro is a name and foreigners tend to love epic FX sagas. Furthermore, I think the rating system is a bit more lenient overseas in terms of violence. It's nudity and drug use that will get you the harsher penalty.

Solid Snake

Good article...but I don't blame Universal. I've felt they've taken risks in proper stride. Hellboy 2 (still can't believe they released it the week before TDK) and Scott Pilgrim are 2 movies that I praise Universal for believing in.

.....if this happens...you, sir. May have a chance to meet GDT, I assume?

As long as GDT is happy w/ it. I'll be *gritting teeth* happy w/ it.

wait..no you didn't re----

lol..oh ok. you got it.

I could see that working but who knows.

Depends on where you go. UK has some issues w/ some stuff on violence. Funny ex: for T2, they had issues w/ gunshots in the knees.

Boba Fett

If Cameron truly believes in the project he should stake some of his own money in it; I bet Universal would have been more receptive to the project if Cameron had ponied up $50-60million of his own

People laughed when Mel Gibson staked $30 million of his own money to make Passion of the Christ, until he cleaned up 20x over at the box office.

Solid Snake

That's also what I'm wondering...why didn't he? How much is Cameron worth?

islandclaws

He made enough on Avatar alone to fully finance ATMOM and still have enough left over to live off for 5 lifetimes.

gmanca

Well Spielberg has worked by the rule that you never put your own money into a project. Look at how that f'ed up Coppola with One from the Heart.

I do think Universal is a shitty studio, greenlighting shit pictures like Land of the Lost while shying away from films that have actual potential. This reminds me of how Ridley Scott was enthusiastic to do Monopoly but his vision wasn't good enough for Universal.

Solid Snake

shying away from what?

They did HBII and Scott Pilgrim for example films that are both pretty good but didn't see financial gain. Especially HBII..the week before TDK. Slaughter is what it was.

brayzie

Ridley Scott had a vision for a movie based on Monopoly? Wow, I'm intrigued.

I was going to say that they already did the "unfilmable" just not for theaters, but the movie was Call of Cthulhu, and it was in black and white. Still pretty cool.

I'm kind of surprised that despite Lovecraft writing stories from the 1920s, they all hold up remarkebly well and scare me more than most modern horror stories and movies.

gmanca

Well, like I mentioned, their Ridley Scott Monopoly movie or they canceled that Colombian drug movie, Cartel, with Josh Brolin.

And with the films you mentioned, the other problem is they don't know how to market for shit. They promo'd the hell out of Hellboy 2 across all of their networks with the stupid USA characters Hellboy bits and, as you said, released it a week before The Dark Knight.

And in Scott Pilgrim's case, they tried to make that movie a blockbuster when it would have been a niche film that did well, and all of the free screenings ahead of time, to the key demographic group, was even more of a failure.

Dr. DVD

I too think they made a big mistake releasing Hellboy 2 a week before TDK. I think the movie did well enough on Blu-Ray and DVD to make a profit, but I was shocked it didn't do better with the way most critics liked it and I think its rottentomatoes rating was just a few % points lower than Dark Knight. Bottomline: Dark Knight was a high profile project of a well known franchise with more interest generated by the death of one of its actors , the other one was based on a lesser known work and starred Ron Perlman.

Troy Stiffler

Bummer. I was looking forward to this one. The book is wonderful. And it feels like a Guillermo Del Toro project. Reading the book, I can just picture it like it's his storytelling.

He's been doing pre production on it for awhile, right? I'd love to see some of the artwork, etc. that's been generated.

If they did pull off an R-rated $150mil horror movie, THAT would be fucking epic. When was the last time we even got a big budgeted R movie?

And please don't talk about other people's money. Internet or not, it's stupid.

Ky-Fi

Call of Cthulhu was fantastic, and Whisperer in the Darkness looks to be even better---screw that big-budget stuff, these guys know how to do Lovecraft, have a passion for it, and are completely faithful to the source material:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/A_ee9K9hXtw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

brayzie

I agree.
Damn, that looks pretty good.
I kind of like the silent film style a little better for the atmosphere but this is good too.

I know there is a series of HPL movies, by independent directors, and one looked particularly good. I just remember it had HPL making an appearance.

Boba Fett

I think TROY and TERMINATOR 3 were the last big budget rated R films at around $175 million a piece.

Gunde

Actually it's the other way around. MPAA ratings are more lenient towards violence, and nudity and drugs are big No-no's.

Burnt Thru

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Jaymole

Sadly, if this was proposed a few years ago before Cruise's meltdown, it would have been greenlit in a second. Just shows how much his star power has declined.

Dr. DVD

I think the most recent big budget movie to come out with an R rating was 2009's Watchmen adaptation with a budget around $150 million. Troy and T3 both made BIG money overseas, but the studios bankrolling the projects don't care if the money isn't coming back to them, and I think most comes from domestic gross.
I honestly feel that if Avatar achieved its status of #1 movie of all time worldwide, but only $200 million of the total gross came from the US, Cameron would have trouble getting financing for a project.

RichC2

T3 was an unusual case -- it wasn't made by one of the major studios, though Warner did release it theatrically in the US (Colombia Tristar released it in most of the rest of the world.)

Similarly, Fox was smart enough to keep Avatar to themselves for most of the world, raking in a majority of its income.