Oh what could have been.

There was a time when Guillermo del Toro was knee deep in a feature film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness, but it of course never came to fruition. The passion project’s origins date back to 2006, and the plan was for the film to be a rated R affair with a big budget and both Tom Cruise and James Cameron on board to produce.

As most fans know, several studios rejected Del Toro’s pitch, and he was eventually forced to give up on it entirely. He just reflected on the depressing experience in a chat with Collider.

Del Toro told the site:

A lot of people think of directors like Caesar sitting on a chaise lounge like somebody feeding them grapes, and you say, ‘I would like to do Mountains of Madness now.’ And it’s not. You’re a blue collar guy working your way, putting numbers in front of studios, putting [together] stars, packages, whatever, and you have your stuff to move.

We thought we had a very good, safe package. It was $150 [million], Tom Cruise and James Cameron producing, ILM doing the effects, here’s the art, this is the concept, because I really think big-scale horror would be great. But there was a difference of opinion; the studio didn’t think so. The R [rating] was what made it. If Mountains had been PG-13, or I had said PG-13 – I’m too much of a Boy Scout, I should have lied, but I didn’t.

He added:

One day, I’ll show you the art, I’ll show you everything we did. We did over 300 pieces of art, we did storyboards, we did models … we had a whole presentation. You will cry, you will go, ‘Why?’

Maybe it’s best we don’t see. It’s all just too depressing.