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Dec. 19th, 2006 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonI hope he gets to make these movies--it sounds like an excellent approach to Lovecraft, existential rather than going for the gore. I do hope he gets to make the vampire film, too :)
Writer/director Guillermo del Toro told SCI FI Wire that he'd like to direct a faithful film version of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness as one of the projects he'd like to do next, right after he completes Hellboy 2 next year. "The whole idea of Lovecraft's position towards the universe, he's very much like an Albert Camus position," del Toro said in an interview, referring to the French novelist and philosopher, while promoting his next film, Pan's Labyrinth, in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Dec. 18. "He's an existentialist. He says the cosmos is indifferent to man. At the very best is indifferent. And [it] just see us as fleas, or ... are hostile to us."
Del Toro, director of Hellboy and Blade II, has been developing a film version of Madness since at least 2003. Based on Lovecraft's 1931 novella, the story is written from the perspective of Professor William Dyer, a geologist from Miskatonic University, and takes place in Antarctica, where an expedition uncovers the remains of ancient creatures and evidence that they predate humans. When many members of the expedition are slaughtered, Dyer begins to realize that the creatures may have been destroyed by their servants, shapeshifting beings called "shoggoths," which may have survived. The novella is considered one of the key works in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
"So this sea of almost ... empty spaces is very hard to portray in film," del Toro said. "It's very hard to portray the fact that you are ... an ant in a picnic, and yet you have delusions of grandeur. That's what Lovecraft was saying. Our race as a whole are just arrogant little ants in a picnic. That's what Mountains of Madness are."
Del Toro would also like to shoot Montecristo, as well as a new version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic hero Tarzan, a project that was recently announced. "Tarzan I take on, because I really think in a feverish state I do believe that there is a Tarzan to be made that is more fantastic and darker and different than the ones that have been made," he said. "So maybe I'm right, maybe I’m wrong; it's where we are."
Then there's Silver, which he would return to his native Mexico to film, he said. "I've been 13 years writing a screenplay called Silver," he said. "It's about wrestlers and vampires. But it's completely straight."
Del Toro added: "Look, if I had my choice, I would choose that after Hellboy [2], I could do Montecristo or Mountains of Madness right away. Those are my two." Pan's Labyrinth opens Dec. 29 in limited release before going wide in January.
Writer/director Guillermo del Toro told SCI FI Wire that he'd like to direct a faithful film version of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness as one of the projects he'd like to do next, right after he completes Hellboy 2 next year. "The whole idea of Lovecraft's position towards the universe, he's very much like an Albert Camus position," del Toro said in an interview, referring to the French novelist and philosopher, while promoting his next film, Pan's Labyrinth, in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Dec. 18. "He's an existentialist. He says the cosmos is indifferent to man. At the very best is indifferent. And [it] just see us as fleas, or ... are hostile to us."
Del Toro, director of Hellboy and Blade II, has been developing a film version of Madness since at least 2003. Based on Lovecraft's 1931 novella, the story is written from the perspective of Professor William Dyer, a geologist from Miskatonic University, and takes place in Antarctica, where an expedition uncovers the remains of ancient creatures and evidence that they predate humans. When many members of the expedition are slaughtered, Dyer begins to realize that the creatures may have been destroyed by their servants, shapeshifting beings called "shoggoths," which may have survived. The novella is considered one of the key works in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
"So this sea of almost ... empty spaces is very hard to portray in film," del Toro said. "It's very hard to portray the fact that you are ... an ant in a picnic, and yet you have delusions of grandeur. That's what Lovecraft was saying. Our race as a whole are just arrogant little ants in a picnic. That's what Mountains of Madness are."
Del Toro would also like to shoot Montecristo, as well as a new version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic hero Tarzan, a project that was recently announced. "Tarzan I take on, because I really think in a feverish state I do believe that there is a Tarzan to be made that is more fantastic and darker and different than the ones that have been made," he said. "So maybe I'm right, maybe I’m wrong; it's where we are."
Then there's Silver, which he would return to his native Mexico to film, he said. "I've been 13 years writing a screenplay called Silver," he said. "It's about wrestlers and vampires. But it's completely straight."
Del Toro added: "Look, if I had my choice, I would choose that after Hellboy [2], I could do Montecristo or Mountains of Madness right away. Those are my two." Pan's Labyrinth opens Dec. 29 in limited release before going wide in January.
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Date: 2006-12-19 06:13 pm (UTC)Re: "He says the cosmos is indifferent to man. At the very best is indifferent:" That's one of my favorite things about Lovecraft. I share the belief that benign neglect is about all we can hope for.
I can't wait for Pan's Labyrinth, BTW. It opens on the 29th. We should arrange an outing!
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Date: 2006-12-19 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 08:00 pm (UTC)