You may have heard by now that director Guillermo del Toro, who directed Pan’s Labryinth, Hellboy and many other SciFi/Fantasy movies, is hoping to direct a film adaption of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. This even got a mention in a biographical article in the New Yorker:
The movie that he most longs to make is an adaptation of a grandly ridiculous H. P. Lovecraft novella, “At the Mountains of Madness,” in which explorers, venturing into Antarctica, discover malevolent aliens in a frozen, ruined city. Some of the aliens mutate wildly, which would allow del Toro to create dozens of extreme incarnations. He said, “If I get to do it, those monsters will be so terrifying.”
Since del Torro loves his monsters, he’d have a blast with this one. At The Mountains of Madness contains two of Lovecraft’s most famous creatures: the Elder Things (pictured) and the huge amoebic Shoggoths. Also, giant albino penguins.
What’s odd is that Tom Cruise apparently hopes to star in it. By my thinking, this is not a role made for Cruise. Lovecraft’s protagonists are not romantic leads or even dramatic heroes. The closest he comes to a real hero is Dr. Armitage in The Dunwich Horror, a seventy year old university librarian.
One idea that occurred to me is that Cruise might be interested due to the similarities between Lovecraft and the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Both of these men were science fiction authors around the same time, though there is no overlap. Both men envisioned ancient alien species occupying and battling over Earth long before humanity arose. In fact, their writings shared quite a number of concepts.
Of course, Hubbard claimed to be writing non-fiction. His epic history of the planet is explained to Scientology members who have obtained “Operating Thetan level III” (OT-III).
This was pointed out to me at the blog of Jason Colavito – skeptic, Lovecraft scholar and fellow Albanian. He’s the author of The Cult of Alien Gods, in which he examines Lovecraft’s role in the formation of “ancient astronaut” myths.
I had kinda hoped that Colavito would announce that Hubbard had stolen everything from Lovecraft. But Colavito decided to take the high road and be all scholarly:
It would go far beyond the evidence to suggest Hubbard borrowed his cosmology from Lovecraft, but the core concepts of ancient aliens, buried civilizations, and mental transfer across time are all ideas that Lovecraft wrote about in stories that Hubbard almost certainly would have read years before developing OT-III. Nevertheless, the reported revelations of OT-III are much more similar to Golden Age SF space opera influence than anything Lovecraft would have written.
So Colavito believes there’s some influence there, but no direct borrowing. Still, the similarities might explain why Cruise is interested in a story that is both dense and grim.
Okay,Hellboy I&II were okay both visually and story wise,but they were at best special-effect flicks of the comic book genre,as that was the source material. To me at least Pan’s Labyrinth was a mess from start to finish,the story didn’t go anywhere worthwhile I’d even say it sucked on both the fantastic and reality angles,the constant cuts back and forth between reality and fantasy were annoying and short changed both tales, granted the make-up was decent but that’s about it. Never understood why folks think he’s great(or why people like the complete shit that is the Matrix trilogy), his direction isn’t decent and his camera work is often quite shoddy. Special-effect driven films(his speciality), would lose the point and horror of a Lovecraft tale, in my mind there are maybe 6-12 stories that H.P. wrote that are adaptable to film in the first place. This may be one but any glitzy effects driven film does not do what is required to make the adaptation palatable. Either way wouldn’t see it in a theatre,and if Cruise is in it I will probably never see it.
Wow Warb, I loved Pan’s. I agree with your assessment of the Matrix films, but I really dug Pan’s.
To me, it wasn’t two stories, but the reflection of the horror the girl had to suffer. Her imagination was filled with fairies, just like normal little girls, but the fairies were horrors. I also appreciated bringing the Spanish civil war to light. It’s been over run by WW2, but shouldn’t be lost to our public consciousness. It was more like a semi abstract painting, expressing the feelings of war through the lens of a little girl.
Just curious, do you speak Spanish, or did you have to read the subtitles? I speak it, and im wondering if reading the subtitles had anything to do with your negative feeling towards the movie.
Talking of Spanish horror films, I watched REC a week or so ago (it was
re-mademessed up in the US as Quarantine). REC goes straight into the top 5 of the best films I have ever seen. I don’t understand Spanish. But I do understand scary.I don’t speak Spanish, and I love Pan’s Labrynth. It’s an absolute masterwork of imagination and creativity. It combines stunning visuals and authentic cinematography with an amazing story – Honestly, I can’t see anything in that film to dislike.
I can.
The Pale Man.
Gave. Me. Nightmares.
Ya, the whole movie evoked strong emotions from me.
Nah I had to read the sub titles…but really I could have possibly liked either tale as a stand alone,but hated them intertwined. Like I said to me the combination made them both weaker than they could have been alone. Furthermore the fantasy story completely ruined the impact of the tale about the revolution…and both tales were paced a bit to slow to me,althought looking at the actual running time of the movie was less than 2 hrs, not sure why I felt that,but I did as I watched it twice once with the wife and once with friends.
Cruise has shown, on more than one occasion, that he’s willing to take risks and play unheroic or nasty characters e.g in Magnolia he plays a hypocritical, manipulative motivational speaker, a real piece of work. In Collateral he is simply a cold-hearted killer with no redemptive attributes. I may not agree with his religion, but I can’t fault his willingness to be the idiot or the bad guy on screen.
Because Cruise is dense and grim?
Doesn’t change the fact fact that an at best mediocre actor and occasionally decent director will probably make a shitty film.
I said in before in the forums and I’ll say it again here: Sure, I’d pay money to see Tom Cruise devoured by eldritch horrors from beyond the stars.
Can’t think of a better use for him.
*LIKES*
Two words: Les Grossman
One of the best characters to come out of Hollywood in my lifetime.
What started in Tropic Thunder became this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdIT0vOulgA
and this
http://www.buzzsugar.com/Video-MTV-Movie-Awards-Opening-Les-Grossman-Taylor-Lautner-Robert-Pattinson-8693030 (sorry, only place I could find this video)
*two thumbs up*
Cruise could be perfect – if he can believe in Xenu he may actually believe in Chtulhu.
I love HPL, but I have to admit I’m nervious about this – let’s just say eldritch horrors from beyond space and time do not really suffice to be the plotline of a movie. The remake of “The Thing” was like ATMOM, sorta, kinda, not really, but HPL was fond of “indescribable horrors” – and we are going to describe said indescribable horrors on the screen?
Though, I did like “In the Mouth of Madness”, which was the best homage to Lovecraft that I’ve seen. Not that that is saying a whole lot, but still…
I don’t know the Blob wasn’t bad and that was a reasonable adaptation of a HPL short story, but the Thing was based on a John W. Campbell short story called Who Goes There? and has been made at least twice,both having some but not all of the elements from the short story.
Never could get into HPL. Having said that, if done well some of his books would make excellent films and/or tv series. They could do it like they did in Alien, where you don’t really see what it is properly, so your mind does the rest.
Actually, there are a lot books that I don’t like that would work on screen provided that the production wasn’t hobbled by the need to pander to the lowest common denominator.
If Cruise stars, I’ll pass. If it’s Geoffrey Rush, I’ll be first in line.
Oh, boy. This could go either way, and I’d have to actually spend money to really make any kind of judgment about it.
We need MOAR LOVECRAFT MOVIES, but so many turn out to be utter crap… *sigh*
Oh tikeli-li! Tikeli-li! I’d watch it!
Thoughts in no particular order:
Pan’s Labyrinth: I’m glad I saw it, but once in a lifetime may be enough. *whew*
It made me think, “No we can *know* that being a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” If we didn’t get that already from Lady Diana.
UF got me reading about Scientology with its recent blog. I read the full article on Haggis (in spite of him having the name of a Scottish food that leaves me queasy), then started looking up other articles on Rick Ross’ cult site. OT3 made me think of HPL and indifferent or hostile alien life-forms immediately.
I hope the movie wouldn’t be crap. I’ve already not-seen movies based on books I liked by Heinlein. Could, but after hearing they weren’t great, just never got enough enthusiasm to get around to it. Y’know: not wanting to see something blah after you really liked a book.
Pingback: Knowing: A Christian Film Analysis and the “Alien Gospel” « Sapientia Mundi, Wisdom of the World « heartchasms
Well, as you know, Del Toro and Cameron are gone from At The Mountains Of Madness – But you may not know yet that Mihai and Sparks are in!!
I learned today that the directing-Producing team Shadow Mihai – shadowmihai.com – and Carrie Cain Sparks have announced they are in early pre-production on an original feature film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness, which they will shoot live action and in the 3D format. As a prelude to the filme, they this week released the sjLume.com. audio book version of At The Mountains Of Madness along with a companion e-book version in various electronic formats.
I haven’t seen the script (they won’t let a stumbler like me near it with a 30 foot word processor) but Director Shadow Mihai, who also penned the script, insists that there is plenty of theme in the original work, as well as numerous angles of storytelling that are unconventional, compelling and unusual. Sparks and Mihai say that the production values will be similar to the intended Del Toro work.
So many of us Lovecraft fans and horror fans (and fans of 3D film) were let down when Del Toro dropped At The Mountains Of Madness. But Mihai and Sparks intend to produce the film out of their own company, Stella James Studios. A start date for the historic film is supposed to be announced this week on sjLume.com.
Paris Michael IS MIhai and he is full of it.
Was there a point to that bizarre necro-troll?!
Marketing