Guillermo del Toro has spent two decades trying to get At The Mountains Of Madness made. Could it finally be time?
If the early buzz is anything to go on, Guillermo del Toro’s stop motion version of Pinocchio is set to be a real treat (our own review of the film is here). None of this is particularly surprising: del Toro has always harboured a deep affinity for the medium of stop motion and the director’s approach towards live action filmmaking has always been one of careful handcrafting. As such, del Toro’s foray into the painstaking and deliberate medium of stop motion was always destined to become something truly special.
The film is set to release on Netflix on December 9th (and is co-directed by Mark Gustafson) but del Toro has clearly been inspired by the process of making the movie. Speaking to Indiewire, the filmmaker has now revealed that he’s been talking to stop motion legend, Phil Tippett, about the possibility of bringing his long-standing dream project, At The Mountains of Madness into being as a stop motion film.
“I said it would be ideal to do Mountains Of Madness as stop-motion”, he said. “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.”
As well as being emboldened by the experience of making Pinocchio, it’s possible that del Toro has been inspired by Mad God, the feature-length horror fever dream that took Tippett 30 years to complete. On the upcoming Blu-ray release for Mad God, del Toro joins Tippett on the film’s commentary track and the Mexican filmmaker is clearly excited about the unique way in which horror can be realised using stop motion.
Will it all come to pass? We certainly hope so. Any fan of del Toro’s work will be keen to see him get to make At The Mountains Of Madness, the HP Lovecraft adaptation that has thus far eluded him, despite the project previously edging pretty close to reality as a live action project.
And now the idea of it being realised as a stop motion project has been revealed, it seems like the perfect form for del Toro to unleash his unbridled creativity. We’ll be watching this space carefully and will let you know when we hear more.
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