Guillermo del Toro Is Fighting For Tom Cruise To Be At The Mountains Of Madness
Shortly after Guillermo del Toro took a walk from THE very delayed HOBBIT and soon after it was announced at Comic-Con that he’d be spearheading Disney’s reboot of THE HAUNTED MANSION, del Toro himself revealed one of the next big projects he’d actually be getting behind the camera for – a 3-D collaboration with James Cameron producing on AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, an adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft novella that’s been a dream of del Toro’s for quite some time. With production scheduled to start early in the summer of next year, that’s moved del Toro on the fast track to putting the pieces together for the film, which includes casting. And, while Universal is pushing the name of James McAvoy for the lead, Guillermo has other ideas, according to Collider. del Toro is ready to dig in his heels and fight for his own personal choice, none other than Tom Cruise.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about Tom Cruise not being the star that he once was and his name not nearly being as valuable as it had been in the past. It’s easy to look at LIONS FOR LAMBS or VALKYRIE or KNIGHT & DAY and try to lay that blame at Cruise’s feet, but, even the most bankable star can only do so much with a bad film. I’ll actually defend VALYRIE as being pretty decent, and even above-average, but the other 2 are not good at all. Prior to that, Tom Cruise was a gold mine. And it’s a bit quick to rush to judgment that Cruise’s time at the top is over. All it takes is one movie to perform exceptionally well, and everyone is right back on Tom Cruise with the quickness. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS could be it.
Cruise has a couple of pictures lined up already between the movie formerly known as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 of the much anticipated Les Grossman biopic, but that doesn’t automatically rule this one out. If del Toro is really the guy Cruise wants and Cameron is willing to throw his weight behind that choice, then they’ll make it all work to get Cruise on-board. In the meantime, the studio will continue to hammer their points home about James McAvoy, who I’m sure they’d like to lock up before he becomes HUGE, since he’s on the verge of blowing up once X-MEN: FIRST CLASS hits next summer.
Who will win this stand-off? The studio writes the checks, so ultimately what they say goes, but Cameron can actually print money out of his ass, so, if he backs del Toro and Cruise, then Cruise will be who del Toro gets, provided he accepts the role.
