Guillermo del Toro Admits ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ Is Probably Staying On His Bucket List

For many years, Frankenstein was a bucket list project for Guillermo del Toro, but that dream finally becomes a reality here in the tail end of 2025. Frankenstein will release in select theaters on October 17 before streaming on Netflix on November 7, but will it pave the way for del Toro to bring another passion project to life? At the Mountains of Madness, perhaps?

As most are aware, Guillermo del Toro was at one point knee deep in a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness, which of course never came to fruition. The 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.

The would-be H.P. Lovecraft adaptation essentially tells of a disastrous Antarctic expedition that encounters unspeakable horrors after discovering ancient ruins.

Several studios ultimately ended up passing on the big-budget project, spelling the end of del Toro’s Lovecraftian dreams. But we’re still asking ourselves… what could have been?

We may never know, unfortunately. Del Toro admits in a chat with Empire this month that his At the Mountains of Madness movie will likely remain an unmade passion project.

“The one that’s on the bucket list that I think is gonna stay there is [At the Mountains of Madness],” he tells the outlet. “It’s too big, too crazy, too R-rated, I guess.”

Del Toro adds, “And to be completely candid, I don’t know that I want to do it after this.”

All the remains of the unmade project is a bit of test footage that Guillermo del Toro shared on Instagram a few years back. Del Toro captions the footage, “All CGI test for a rig – ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] for At the Mountains of Madness (a decade ago) never-before-seen.”

You can check that footage out down below.