March 28, 2024

“Prometheus” Kills del Toro’s “Madness”?

Quite a lot of people mourned when word came last year that Universal had scrapped plans for Guillermo del Toro’s life-long dream project, his adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains Of Madness”.

del Toro’s determination to stick with an R-rating and the hefty budget (around $ 150M) made it a tough sell, but he (and many of us) held out hope that it would be resurrected someday.

Sadly even the filmmaker himself seems to have given up hope and for one very specific reason – Ridley Scott’s upcoming sci-fi saga “Prometheus”. Seems the similarities between the two stories are too much to ignore.

In postings on Del Toro Films (via WP), the director posted the following message on this issue which has apparently come up in interviews:

“Prometheus started filming a while ago – right at the time we were in preproduction on ‘Pacific Rim’. The title itself gave me pause- knowing that ‘Alien’ was heavily influenced by Lovecraft and his novella.

This time, decades later with the budget and place Ridley Scott occupied, I assumed the greek metaphor alluded at the creation aspects of the HPL book.

I believe I am right and if so, as a fan, I am delighted to see a new RS science fiction film, but this will probably mark a long pause -if not the demise- of ‘At the Mountains of Madness’.

The sad part is- I have been pursuing ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ for over a decade now – and, well, after Hellboy II two projects I dearly loved were not brought to fruition for me.

The good part is: One project did… And I am loving it and grateful for the blessings I have received.”

When people went on to ask him about the similarities he said:

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

“Same premise. Scenes that would be almost identical. Both movies seem to share identical set pieces and the exact same big revelation (twist) at the end. I won’t spoil it.”

END SPOILERS

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