Anybody got the cliff notes?
GDT: The obsession I have with Mountains of Madness goes back to when I was eleven or twelve. You know, I bought my first book with my money, at age seven. And I read one of Lovecraft's stories when I was around that age, the Outsider, you know, I remember the title in Spanish because I read it in Spanish. And I became absolutely obsessed with the guy, and the sense of alien...the notion of being created as a joke, and humanity being given free-will and ambition as you would give catnip to a cat; to amuse yourself, you know? And those notions came hand in hand also with a side that I'm embracing also in the movie, because look, Lovecraft is the master, in literature, he is the master of the ambiguous. But film by definition is specific, film is a specificity itself...and that's why our minds are normally resistant to somebody adapting a book we lived with for a long time. Because we all have an (inaudible) relationship with that character. But when film defines it, we get angry because it defines it once and for all. Once and for all that's Frodo, or that's Mr. Darcy, or that's the Frankenstein monster. I mean, I think as many exceptions I make come and go, Karloff claimed that title, Karloff claimed the creature, he owns it.
And with Lovecraft I think it's even more dangerous, because he is a guy that used adjectives that allowed our minds to fill in the blanks in a way that literally, literally, work with some of our deepest fears that are incredibly personal. So knowing that I'm not going to please everybody, it's actually very liberating, because no matter what I do, I'm gonna f**k up for a large chunk of the people that love Lovecraft.
But the aspect I'm loving in the specificity, and I cannot tell you how we're gonna do it, but I'm trying to find a way to show the creatures, but not show them...that you can never quite grasp what they are.
Questioner: The Shoggoth?
GDT: Yeah, the Shoggoth. And part of it...and we're doing is, we're working with very simple principles, but that have not been done on film ever before. And with Lovecraft what you do then is embrace the other side of him, which is the pulp side too. Because I think, mind you, I think it's a mistake to negate the literary value of Lovecraft, but it's also a mistake to negate his pulpish enchantment, you know? And you can't say he is (inaudible), you don't say he...he is his own creature. A part of what makes Lovecraft work is the pulp aspects of him, and the screenplay and the movie will embrace that too, the adventure aspect, the exploration, the (inaudible) aspect, the scale, and the monsters. And so, you know, I hope, I hope we can do it.
We've been working now five weeks on the design, guided by principle. I mean, I've been thinking about this movie for thirty years. I wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robbins thirteen years ago. The first time I met Jim Cameron in 1991 when he saw Cronos, he said what would you like to do next, I said Mountains of Madness. So this is, this is truly (inaudible). And if I screw up, I'll screw up wholeheartedly and sincerely. There's no other way to do it. I mean, I think that I'm approaching it...this is not a simple (wager?) for me, it's not a movie I'm gonna do and then on to the next, this is a landmark foe me, you know? I'm putting all the chips I have gotten making films and betting on a single number, you know? And, and it's a very serious endeavor for me. I take my tentacles very seriously.
Q: You said you were going to do something that hasn't been done before. But something that's really intriguing to me is that you're really not a CGI person. You like organic stuff. So does that mean an organic approach that we haven't seen before?
GDT: Both. Because I told you that the Shoggoth, trying to render the Shoggoth with a physical effect is madness, is foolishness, it's...I know, I am an ex-special effects technician, I know that the only way to render those creature would be silicone, and silicone by definition is super heavy. So those creatures would be literally lumps...gigantic sculptures. But we are doing things that are interesting. Things that, by the way, I learned, some of them I learned in prepping the Hobbit, it's very funny you know? You learn from things that happen and then those things don't, they don't happen. We are, we're...I can tell you this; I've said this before, but I have hopr you haven't gotten tired of me repeating it, we had a meeting three weeks ago more or less with Dennis Muren from (inaudible), and for me Dennis Muren is like Mick Jagger, he walks in the room and I...
Q: Old and creepy?
GDT: No. A god. So it was a little moment of awe and (inaudible). And I had never met him. I never met Dennis Muren, I (inaudible). I showed him the designs and I could see him getting super excited, and then he turned and said to, there was a studio person there, he turned and said: "You realize that no one has seen monsters like this before ever?", and I was like...I'm happy...I'm (inaudible) it's not gonna get better than this. And what I mean, some tricks, see some tricks are very easy. I wish the Hobbit had been a film, I wish it had gone, because then I would tell you, with it, I did something, I'm not sure the design will stay that way, but I came up with a thing for Smaug that has never been done, ever. I know every dragon ever made, it had never been done. I'm not sure that Smaug will stay as that one, but when everything is said and done, you know when the third volume comes out, we meet againand the movie is out, I'll tell you if they did or not and I'll tell you what the trick was. And it's very simple thing, but it's never been done before. So, you know, I think that it's not hard, when you are immersed in this thing, you can find ways of rendering these creatures in a different way and it's not that hard.
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