Update: Guillermo del Toro clarified that he is not officially set to adapt The Mountain of Madness. Original story continues below tweet:
Thanks to Guillermo del Toro, fans have had their fill of horror stories this year. The acclaimed filmmaker did an eight-part anthology series, Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix, which gave a new twist to spooky season and now fans have enjoyed his stop-motion animation feature, Pinocchio, in theaters which is a retelling of the classic kid's story with del Toro’s touch! But there’s one project the Academy Award-winning director has been eyeing making for a long time, an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Mountain of Madness. In a new interview with IndieWire he hinted that it might finally come out as an animated feature.
The director conceived the idea sometime between making 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth and 2015’s Crimson Peak, however, it was too ambitious for rigorous studio machinery to green light. Written in 1931 the classic Lovecraft tale follows a doomed exploration to Antarctica. It is told from the perspective of protagonist Dr. William Dyer and acts as a warning for others who may be interested in having their own adventure to the previously unseen continent. Throughout the story, we learn about larger-than-life monsters and a long-lost civilization that used to inhabit the snow-clad lands. All of them have vanished but for a collection of their sculptures and murals.
In the new interview, del Toro revealed that he spoke with VFX veteran Phil Tippett, the genius behind features like Mad God, the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, and RoboCop. They discussed translating the director’s original pitch for The Mountain of Madness into a stop-motion production just like Pinocchio. “I said it would be ideal to do ‘Mountains of Madness’ as stop-motion,” del Toro said. Adding, “You watch the animation in a more rapturous way than live action. It’s almost a hypnotic act, and the relationship to the story becomes more intimate in that way.”
Earlier this month to mark his Instagram debut del Toro revealed a decade-old CGI test clip wherein a slimy, tentacled, and clawed monster bursts through what can only be described as a body sack, drawing the attention of the trapped explorer in a cave. It’s a thrilling scene to see and speaks volumes about the director’s vision to adapt the original tale in all its authenticity. The stop-motion animated format gives artists the liberty to visualize and conceive ideas that aren’t possible in live action.
Pinocchio will debut on Netflix on December 9. You can check out the trailer below: