'At The Mountains Of Madness': Guillermo del Toro Drops Early VFX Footage From His Scrapped Universal Film

In the early 2010s, Guillermo del Toro and Universal planned an R-rated adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s “In The Mountains Of Madness.” And it was an ambitious project for del Toro, with a $150 million budget and Industrial Light And Magic on board for VFX. But Universal shelved the project at the last minute, leaving Lovecraft fans to wonder what GDT had in mind for the writer’s first big film adaptation.

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For those who still wonder about that, del Toro provided a sneak peek of early VFX footage from the project on Instagram yesterday. While the clip is only 25 seconds long, it shows how far the director and ILM were in the film’s visual development. The clip depicts a faithful recreation of Lovecraft’s monster from his novella, too, which drives home how passionate del Toro was about the project once upon a time.

“In The Mountains Of Madness” is one of Lovecraft’s most famous works. The novella follows a disastrious 1930 Antarctic expedition that uncovers an ancient civilization on the continent — and the monsters who helped build it. So, imagine John Carpenter‘s “The Thing” with ancient ruins, stone cities, and evil mythical creatures and that’s about halfway there. Del Toro regrets he never made the project. In December 2021, the director told horror writer Stephen King on his podcast that he perused old material from the film after he signed his multi-project deal with Netflix. If he made “Mountains” today, del Toro told King he’d want a weirder, tighter, more focused script, but that’s no indication he plans to return to the project.

Pinocchio,” del Toro’s first major project with Netflix, hits the streamer on December 9. “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities,” a horror anthology series, also hit Netflix in October, but del Toro didn’t direct any of its episodes. What does del Toro have in mind next for Netflix, perhaps returning to “In The Mountains Of Madness”? Don’t count it, but it is cool to see a (very early) look at what del Toro envisioned for the scrapped film. Watch the clip below.