We’re barely off of the announcement that At The Mountains of Madness is happening at all, and already we’re hearing rumors of casting considerations. Coming from Collider, their sources claim that Del Toro has remained interested in Tom Cruise after their meetings about a new Van Helsing film, and now wants the star to lead his exploration into Lovecraft’s nightmares. The same sources claim that Universal is interested in and reaching out to James McAvoy.
There is scarce detail here folks, and even this information could be second-hand impressions of actual happenings, if they’re based on anything at all. We’re almost a year away from the Spring 2011 start of shooting, and while it certainly won’t take that long to find out who’s leading the ill-fated team, it’s going to take longer than this.
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The world is dead to me.
And now Nick's rambling Tom Cruise article makes sense.
Oh Christ, please don't put Cruise in this. He'll find some way to relate the Elder Gods to Scientology and ruin the whole thing. Verification attempt #4.
Tom Cruise is perfect this could get his career going again. Del Toro and Cameron count me in.
So McAvoy ISNT Bilbo!?!?
He already has Cameron's rampant ego to contend with without bringing Cruise along. They should go with unknowns – the monsters are the stars.
Consider that Cruise actually believes in this ancient alien type shit and it's a winner.
I'm guessing most of you haven't read the story. Scientology is actually a lot closer to the cosmology than you think. *Spoilers, if you care.* This story is a later work and has Lovecraft de-mystifying his mythos by defining it as incomprehensible ancient aliens rather than supernatural beings. I'm curious how they're going to do this because in the story, the only monsters are the Elder Things (intelligent alien beings who form a civilization in the Antarctic long before Man) and their servants the Shoggoths. The Elder Things are only ever shown dead (or "suspended"), and the Shoggoth is only ever heard. A passing reference is made to the Elder Things' war with the "Cthuhlu" aliens who were on earth at the same time. It could be damn scary, but I don't think Del Toro can (or should) hold off on showing the monsters.
There is an old draft of the screenplay floating around; not sure if it's legit, but I stopped reading about halfway through, as it was becoming too predictable and cliche. BTW – in that script a shoggoth shows up around page 30-something, and apparently can assume identities. So much for even trying to distance this from "The Thing". As for Cruise, or other big name stars, I'm torn. On the one hand, lesser known actors would give a greater sense of realism, but to have a full-blown Lovecraft adaptation with major stars would legitimize the project to the mainstream, and draw a bigger audience into the mythos. That is probably the compromise we will have to make for this to be a big budget flick.
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