The Bus

I thought they started selling off chunks of it as late as fall 2009...

Labor

IIRC Fox was the smallest investor in Avatar and Cameron had to get financing from other partners (Hell, Fox originally passed on Avatar, despite financing the ILM screen test, and only came back groveling to Cameron when Disney was going to make an offer)

RichC2

All possible, I don't know the breakdown.

Paul1957

Del Toro interview with deadline:

http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/qa-g...ss-fell-apart/

You may think I’m being glib, but I don’t know. Since the day of the decision, I haven’t had a face to face with [Universal executives]. We’ve exchanged a few phone calls. I my mind, we were given the parameters of a budget and screenplay, and I was given the chance by the studio to create a visual presentation. They were blown away by the visual presentation, they openly admitted to loving the screenplay, saying it was dead on. And we hit the target on the budget they gave us, not a figure I arrived at. This came after months and months of story boarding, haggling with VFX companies, and bringing down the budget number. The week before the decision, I was scouting in the border of Canada and Alaska. We were a week away from opening offices in Toronto. We were crewed up, and frankly, I am as puzzled as most people are. One of the biggest, biggest points for me with this movie was the scope and the R, going hand in hand.

I have learned in the last few years that God laughs as we make plans. The beauty of it is, in the last few days, I spoke to Tom, who has been incredibly supportive and who said, ‘Let’s keep going, let’s make this movie down the road.’ He’s definitely that interested and that happy where we were creatively. So we have good legs to travel on, if the time and the opportunity present itself. But we’re going to fight for that to happen. I’ve been offered four or five times at different studios the chance to make this movie in what I think was the wrong way. With $20 million or $30 million less than what I need, with a contractual PG-13, and I don’t want to do it that way.

CloverClover

I think all these problems he’s had, with hobbit and now this, it seems Del Toro himself’s the problem.

If he wanted this kinda budget, he should’ve done the hobbit, and after that the studios woulda owed him something like madness to his asking price.

Just seems the guy doesn't know how to play the game. He wants Christopher Nolan freedom but hasn't made a dark knight to warrant it.

IMO he should do it with less budget and be creative.

Solid Snake

what? He was tied to The Hobbit for the longest of time. he eventually lost patience w/ it.

Del Toro's not the problem, as far as we've heard.

Grubert

"And we hit the target on the budget they gave us, not a figure I arrived at."

Wow. That casts a new light on the situation. And not very favorably on Universal.

james2025a

This is a shame. I picked up a H.P. Lovecraft book of collected stories and have been making my way through them. Just started reading ATMOM this week and i am really enjoying it. Sure that Del Toro could have done a great job in bringing it to the big screen. Hopefully somewhere down the road this will get back on track and green lighted.

Philzilla

this

Dr. DVD

And something recycled sounding like Pacific Rim is the ticket? FWIW, ATMOM might be Del Toro's Dark Knight type movie that he needs to get the freedom. Nolan was also given a bit of control over TDK, even though Batman Begins was not a runaway success by any stretch of the imagination, it did well, but not TDK numbers.

That said, I think Del Toro should agree to the PG-13, make the movie he really wants, and then see if it actually does merit an R rating. The impression I'm getting is that he wants it R for the sake of being R as opposed to that being a necessity due to the material. He has stated it would not be for gore, and ratings boards can be quite lenient no matter how shocking the images one might present.

Philzilla

I don't disagree but a $150 million budget for a guy whose top grossing film is Blade II, I see where the studio is coming from.

Dan

Mind if I ask exactly which collection you bought? I've never read any HPL, so I'm looking for a collection to get me started.

Dr. DVD

If you own a Nook, you can get The Essential H.P. Lovecraft from B&N.com for $0.99 , a fair price for about 16+ stories one of them being ATMOM.

Dan

Thanks! I just ordered it from the Kindle store, since that's better for me. Same price.

islandclaws

I just ordered it through iBooks for my iPhone. Can't beat all that Lovecraft for $0.99!

Mr. Cinema

Not that this is connected in any way, but Universal may still be feeling the effects of "The Wolfman" debacle and are nervous about spending another $150 mil on this film. Maybe they should have hired Neill Blomkamp for this movie. He'd probably could've made it a little cheaper. But I think the old regime oversaw "The Wolfman". I'm wondering, if true, why the new execs there would want to spend that much.

I'm not too upset though. I wanted Del Toro to remake Frankenstein first.

RocShemp

I think Batman Begins being the eighth-highest grossing film of 2005 in the US helped convince WB to loosen the purse strings. Besides, no one would have suspected the staggering numbers raked in by TDK. But regardless of what one thinks of the quality of the film, the allegations surrounding Heath Ledger's death and a fantastic ad campaign (which was ridiculously expensive) had a large part to play in its success.

So, yes, despite how talended as Del Toro is, he cannot expect the same kind of freedom Nolan (a talented filmmaker as well) now enjoys until he gets such a lucky break.

Boba Fett

Except THE WOLFMAN was a case of a music video director bailing through production and the studio bringing on a replacement while also micromanaging his work.

Del Toro has proven to be a consistent director and even when Universal set HELLBOY II up to tank, it turned a nice profit in the end. Heck, even PAN'S LABYRINTH, which was subtitled (the bane of Joe Sixpack) nearly made $100 million. While it was a masterpiece of a film, no one can deny that it was not something people would expect to be a mainstream hit.

Frankly, I think Del Toro has proven he's reliable and can deliver a commercial product. With Cameron on board in a major capacity, Universal shouldn't have worried and let them go wild, but then again like I said before, if Cameron truly believed in the project he'd fund most if not all of it himself.

CharlieK

Just a quick update on this. I'm happy to see that it's still top of mind for him. I do hope to see it one day.

"But Del Toro is optimistic that he might yet figure out a way to mount the story of a scientific expedition to Antarctica that yields unearthly finds. “I’m not giving up,” the Oscar winner said, speaking by phone recently from Canada where he’s readying his next directorial effort, the creature feature “Pacific Rim.” ” ‘Mountains of Madness’ has been with me for 13, 14 years and I really don’t want to give up on it. Look, the movies I do, I stick with them when I think, well, if I don’t do it, nobody will. … ‘Hellboy,’ if I hadn’t done it, I don’t think anyone would have. ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ same thing. ‘Mountains of Madness,’ the way I plan to do it is a very peculiar take, and I think if I don’t stick with it the version I would like to see would never get made.”

“I’d rather address the budget than the rating,” Del Toro said. “The movie can perfectly someday be PG-13, but contractually I need to protect it. There’s nothing in the movie that is profanity or sexual situations or any of that. But what we learned with ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is that sometimes intensity, the intensity of the situations, garners you the R. ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,’ in my mind, should be a PG-13. It’s several intense moments [that] got us the R — I think some of the situations at the end, I don’t want to spoil it, but there are a couple of moments at the end that they deemed were too intense and I didn’t want to water down the movie.”

“Pacific Rim” is scheduled to open in 2013, and after it’s completed Del Toro said he has every intention of turning his attention back to Lovecraft’s frigid alien landscapes. “I’m going to keep pursuing it,” he said. “Universal is still really interested in doing it. Coming out of ‘Pacific Rim,’ I intend to see if we can do it immediately.

“I knew ‘Mountains’ was a long shot,” he added. “In fact, it was a miracle we got that close to production.”

Hero Complex

Dr. DVD

^ Nice to know it still might happen. 2015 can't come soon enough!!!

I think he could easily make a PG-13 ATMOM, as it is nudity and sex that will land you in hot water , not intensity or violence nowadays.

Solid Snake

especially fantasy violence.

gmanca

Well what in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark would have been so different? At the Mountains of Madness would have some graphic violence, even if it's inflicted by fantastical creatures.

Troy Stiffler

Sorry, no movie news.

I saw this on GDT's Twitter and had a giggle.

Researchers find secret, warm oasis beneath Antarctica's ice that could be home to undiscovered species https://t.co/fmTPoawxFx

— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) September 9, 2017

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Dan

#%@%*@*%@@*@@*^@****^@*(@(@^

Troy Stiffler

With every new GDT movie, I hope it's a big money maker (ala Pan's Labyrinth), just so we can get At the Mountains of Madness. Even that tweet gave me a little hope that maybe he was hinting at something.