At the Mountains of Madness - Guillermo Del Toro's Next Project!

[I SEE SPIDEY]

The Conjuring didn't cost 150mil and if it did it's 285mil gross so far wouldn't be nearly as impressive.

I totally wished that Del Toro had done the Hobbit so that he could've gotten major credit to do what he wanted. It is a huge shame that him directing Thee Hobbit didn't work out.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd and the aforementioned Conjuring don't agree with that. Besides, you could hide the 1930's setting pretty easily in the trailers.

Sweeny Todd was based on a popular Broadway play with Burton and Depp in which the former was coming off three consecutive financially successful movies (Big Fish, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride) and the Conjuring only cost $20 million to make so there wasn't much risk there.

Sleepy Hollow I admit you could go either way on. It was a $100+ budgeted Rated R movie that was a success, but it was originally supposed to be a $30 million movie until Burton came on and suggested they build a town for Sleepy Hollow after failing to find a suitable actual location for the movie. Burton may not have been as hot at the time, but he was still known as the guy who made Batman and was supposed to be make a Superman movie in the 90s.

The problem with Del Toro is that while he is a great director, he's still not a proven box office entity in Hollywood. Pacific Rim did well overseas, but it bombed in the US, and while HellBoy 2 did good numbers, it got overshadowed by a few other movies that got released that same Summer, most notably Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

I'd like to see the movie happening, but in this case, I understand where Universal is coming from in terms of pulling the plug on this movie. It was too much of a risk for them at the time.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The Conjuring didn't cost 150mil and if it did it's 285mil gross so far wouldn't be nearly as impressive.

I totally wished that Del Toro had done the Hobbit so that he could've gotten major credit to do what he wanted. It is a huge shame that him directing Thee Hobbit didn't work out.

He should have done them. He gets those over with, and he would definitely have the leverage to make more of his own movies.

 

[Lord]

Yeah but if it did that it would in least get even, otherwise the film will only make the studio lose money.

Yeah, i also think he would have brought a better quality to the Hobbit movies and make them seem more like Fables like the book instead of trying to be another Lord of the Rings. Guillermo Del Toro certainly needs a major success and i'm not sure how he will get it, Pacific Rim ended up working fine and show how big of a market China can be, but due to its budget it didn't make as much money as it should have.

 

[Rocketman]

Sweeny Todd was based on a popular Broadway play with Burton and Depp in which the former was coming off three consecutive financially successful movies (Big Fish, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride) and the Conjuring only cost $20 million to make so there wasn't much risk there.

Sleepy Hollow I admit you could go either way on. It was a $100+ budgeted Rated R movie that was a success, but it was originally supposed to be a $30 million movie until Burton came on and suggested they build a town for Sleepy Hollow after failing to find a suitable actual location for the movie. Burton may not have been as hot at the time, but he was still known as the guy who made Batman and was supposed to be make a Superman movie in the 90s.

The problem with Del Toro is that while he is a great director, he's still not a proven box office entity in Hollywood. Pacific Rim did well overseas, but it bombed in the US, and while HellBoy 2 did good numbers, it got overshadowed by a few other movies that got released that same Summer, most notably Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

I'd like to see the movie happening, but in this case, I understand where Universal is coming from in terms of pulling the plug on this movie. It was too much of a risk for them at the time.

That's pretty much 100% the issue.

I just don't think he's done anything that everyone wants to see. A studio needs to give him like a Batman or a Spider-Man or something.

I actually think he would rock X-Men.

 

[dude stannis]

He can be a stubborn old coot too. All he has to do is one Marvel, or a Star Wars film and he's got a sizable box office hit on his hands. But he doesn't want to.

 

[terry78]

It's cool to not want to compromise your vision, yet the double edged sword is that you can lose out on getting larger budgets for future personal pet projects if you don't play ball on occasion.

 

[redhawk23]

He can be a stubborn old coot too. All he has to do is one Marvel, or a Star Wars film and he's got a sizable box office hit on his hands. But he doesn't want to.

Pacific Rim actually grossed more than Captain America and made far, far more than the Incredible Hulk. And it made only a little less than the first Thor film.

Yes 400 million is a problem in light of the film's budget, but it found a comparable audience to most of the Marvel films.

Maybe the real key to success is casting Robert Downey Jr.

 

[dude stannis]

But with he and Marvel are both stingy. So a GDT/Marvel joint would be way cheaper than Pacific Rim.

Though to be fair if PR made the same worldwide amount but 100 million more in the U.S. and 100 million less overseas would it still be considered a disappointment?

 

[Rorschach2012]

Pacific Rim sucked, he should've done this instead

 

[redhawk23]

Pacific Rim sucked, he should've done this instead

Not like he didn't try. He was out scouting locations when he got the call that the project was canned and was back on Pacific Rim within a week.

 

[redhawk23]

But with he and Marvel are both stingy. So a GDT/Marvel joint would be way cheaper than Pacific Rim.

Though to be fair if PR made the same worldwide amount but 100 million more in the U.S. and 100 million less overseas would it still be considered a disappointment?

Exactly.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Pacific Rim actually grossed more than Captain America and made far, far more than the Incredible Hulk. And it made only a little less than the first Thor film.

Yes 400 million is a problem in light of the film's budget, but it found a comparable audience to most of the Marvel films.

Maybe the real key to success is casting Robert Downey Jr.

I wouldn't say that given that Pacific Rim performed significantly less domestically and that the international B.O. has changed drastically since 2011, especially with China opening bigger numbers.

I'd say that Thor TDW and Captain America TWS will be the real gauge of if Marvel's other non-Iron Man franchises can go from modest success to blockbuster hit.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Though to be fair if PR made the same worldwide amount but 100 million more in the U.S. and 100 million less overseas would it still be considered a disappointment?

Nope. It would be more of a modest success, but it's important to note that overseas means less than domestic due to overseas deals. It's important to note that WB/Legendary doesn't distribute Pacific Rim in China, meaning they don't make as much in China in addition to other aspects when dealing with overseas box office gross.

According to this article, movie studios only get 25% of the Chinese B.O.

 

[redhawk23]

I wouldn't say that given that Pacific Rim performed significantly less domestically and that the international B.O. has changed drastically since 2011, especially with China opening bigger numbers.

I'd say that Thor TDW and Captain America TWS will be the real gauge of if Marvel's other non-Iron Man franchises can go from modest success to blockbuster hit.

The audience may be in a different place, but still, its not as if no one went to see it. Its just that those people didn't live in Kansas.

I was just saying that "playing ball" and doing a Marvel film probably wouldn't do him many more favors than Pacific Rim did or could have. You don't exactly see Joe Johnston cranking out movies and being handed giant budgets.

 

[dude stannis]

On the flipside Shane Black finally gets to do the (1930's set!) Doc Savage movie he'd been trying to get off the ground. But a Marvel backed superhero movie is a less risky proposition than Pacific Rim was.

 

[Lord]

Guillermo Del Toro actually had many other oportunities to do big films that could help give him more box-office credibility, i mean, he was offered the possibility of making a Harry Potter movie twice. Anybody knows exactly why he walked away from the Hobbit?

 

[dark_b]

HP at that time was a 100% guarantee success

 

[Teelie]

Guillermo Del Toro actually had many other oportunities to do big films that could help give him more box-office credibility, i mean, he was offered the possibility of making a Harry Potter movie twice. Anybody knows exactly why he walked away from the Hobbit?

The massive sinkhole it was at the time. Delays, delays, delays. It would've been out years ago but there were rights and royalty issues from LOTR holding up production on this movie because of the studio structuring profits to make itself all the money while it screwed over everyone else who invested.

By the time all that was cleared up GDT was on to better things to do with his time than sit and wait.

 

[Lord]

Yeah but not only was around 60 % of the scipt complete but soon after that the films production started to move ahead very fast, had he stayed, by this time he would have a 1 billion dollars crosser film, and with something like that i doubt the studios wouldn't let him do whatever he wanted, in fact the promise of "From the Director of The Hobbit" would probably give a small boost to the money his movies gross.

 

[Teelie]

It could have been 100% completed and still been in development hell thanks to the studio's legal issues tying up the production and there is no way to know how quickly that would be concluded or what the fallout would have been.

 

[dark_b]

maybe when Jackson was directing everything changed. maybe they were all more positive about the movie since the original director was back.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

The audience may be in a different place, but still, its not as if no one went to see it. Its just that those people didn't live in Kansas.

I was just saying that "playing ball" and doing a Marvel film probably wouldn't do him many more favors than Pacific Rim did or could have. You don't exactly see Joe Johnston cranking out movies and being handed giant budgets.

It worked for Branaugh, Favreau, and Black, though.

I agree, though. I myself never said Marvel would be the perfect place for Del Toro, but if he were to do a Marvel film, I think it would depend on the franchise, how good a fit it is, and how much potential it has.

What people forget about the Thor and Captain America franchises is that both these series were never expected to do Iron Man numbers. Back in 2011, Captain America actually did better than predicted by most analysts, while Thor did slightly lower than predicted. Neither didn't overperform or underperform. They just performed.

This isn't a Marvel thread, or a comic book film thread, so I won't go too deeply into it.

 

[The Guard]

Would fans accept a modern interpretation of this story? Or does it have to be period?

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

I have little experience with HP Lovecraft and Lovecraft stories so I honestly do not know. I'm interested in that question too.