10 Dumbest Reasons Movies Got Cancelled
6. The Refusal Of An R Rating - At The Mountains Of Madness
Guillermo del Toro is a legendary director, but also has an extensive list of movies to his name that ultimately weren't made. From the elusive third movie in the Hellboy series to dropping out of The Hobbit, and having his name attached to numerous projects that never came to fruition, there are some impressive projects that were once on the cards.
One such abandoned idea was del Toro's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. The director is no stranger to Lovecraft's work, having adapted both Pickman's Model and The Dreams in the Witch House in his Cabinet of Curiosities, but he once came agonisingly close to filming what was considered to be impossible to film.
Ultimately the reason why the movie was put on ice by Universal was del Toro's insistence on the project being R rated. This could have now been up there with some of the biggest R-rated movies of all time, the likes of Joker and Deadpool, but the label seemingly scared the studio. Yes, such a rating limits a movie's potential audience, but it would allow it to be the best possible version of itself.
This is a crying shame, as del Toro, H.P. Lovecraft, and the home of cinematic monsters would have been a match made in heaven, but instead Universal rejected the darker tone outright.