Deadline posted a rumor that Guillermo Del Toro’s next film will be H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness with none other than James Cameron producing the movie as a 3D epic.  Right now this is just a rumor, so take all of this with a mountain of salt.  That said, if the rumor does turn out to be true, is this a good idea?  My initial reaction to Del Toro on Mountains was HELL YES, but Cameron?  In 3D?  I don’t know.

This isn’t something I can even pretend to contemplate as just a movie fan.  Lovecraft is my favorite horror writer in the same way that oxygen is my favorite gas.  There’s everybody else, then there is a handful of writers above everybody else, then on top of a freaking mountain of madness is Howard Phillips Lovecraft.  Lovecraft influences my writing, my gaming, my reading, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t consider Lovecraft’s work in some way or another.  I was first introduced to Lovecraft’s creation in the original AD&D Deities and Demigods book.  I sought out and read everything he had written before I was out of high school.  I took a Lovecraft course in college taught by a visiting Lovecraft scholar.  As it happens, I started re-reading Mountains for the third or fourth time Sunday night.  I know this material, and I’m here to tell you, I don’t think this is a good idea.

If Del Toro were doing this as an indie flick under his own control, I would hold out great hope for this.  I’m sure he knows and respects the source material, and he has a proven ability to bring insanity to the screen, but this isn’t that move.  This is a huge Hollywood movie with James Cameron producing it.  The studio will have their way with this, and James will have his way with it.  Granted, this is Lovecraft’s one big epic, but that is nothing like a Cameron epic.  I’m afraid, very afraid, in completely the wrong way.  To top it off, they’re going to bring this huge Cameron epic to us in glorious 3D.  This whole thing feels like a fever dream after failing a sanity roll.

If this movie happens, it may be, it probably will be, a huge hit.  It will star Leonardo DiCaprio, and it will make hundreds of millions of dollars.  It will likely start a waterfall of Lovecraft properties becoming movies that don’t represent Lovecraft’s writing at all.  I pride myself on having a good bit less nerd rage than most of my geek friends.  I don’t get pissed off when they change comic book characters in movies.  I don’t care for Wonder Woman’s new look, but it doesn’t make me mad.  This could be the one to do it to me though.  I can see the rant coming from here.

There is another possibility, a much darker possibility.  The stars could be right.  Del Toro could use the studios money and Cameron’s influence to make this movie right.  He could actually capture At the Mountains of Madness on film in believable, realistic 3D.  We’ll all go to see it, and we’ll all love it.  We’ll tell everyone we know to see it.  We’ll buy tickets for people who can’t afford it.  Then, one moonless night, we’ll find ourselves naked, dancing in the field, chanting, “Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!”  We will dance until our feet are bloodied.  We will chant until our voices crack.  Then They will come.

It seems a lot safer to just not make this movie.