Farewell Tolkien, Hello Lovecraft?

June 01, 2010

Guillermo del Toro has just announced that he is bowing out of his directing gig on The Hobbit. According to the filmmaker, the persistent postponement of the start date has compelled him to pursue other projects. "In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit, I am faced with the hardest decision of my life," del Toro said in a statement on OneRing.net. "After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien's Middle-earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures."

Del Toro maintains that he will continue to co-write the screenplays with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, but will not be directing. He added:
"I wish the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director."

So does this mean that he will finally throw himself into getting his beloved and long-touted adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s cosmic-terror tale At the Mountains of Madness off the ground? According to an interview on Sci-fi.com a while back, del Toro stated: “Part of the arrangement with Universal… was they would finance research and development for Mountains of Madness. And we are doing it. There are many technical tools in creating the monsters that don't exist, and we need to develop them. The creatures, Lovecraft's creatures, the tools that exist for CG and the materials that exist for makeup effects, you need to push them to get there and we're going to push them.”

This has long been a dream project for the filmmaker and he commented in an interview with Torn in 2008: “At The Mountains of Madness’… that movie I have kept alive for many, many years and I want to keep it alive to do as soon as I can.”

If anyone can do justice to a Lovecraft adaptation, it’s Guillermo del Toro. Anyone needing any proof of what he could do with Lovecraft’s mythology and how great it could look should just check out those positively Lovecraftian shots from Hellboy, particularly those of the descending Ogdru Jahad at the climax.