10 Horror Movies You Didn't Know Nearly Happened

In the realm of horror, few directors are as renowned as Guillermo del Toro. From Pan's Labryinth to Crimson Peak, the Mexican auteur has demonstrated his brilliance in elevating the macabre and unusual tropes found in the genre. So, when it was announced back in 2006 that he would be taking on one of H.P. Lovecraft's most iconic novels, there was cause for celebration among cinephiles.

The project seemed like the perfect blend of source material and director, and it helped that it was initially pitched as a big-budget, R-rated feature, meaning that the terrifying nature of Lovecraft's opus would be expertly conveyed. The icing on the cake was that Tom Cruise was attached to star and James Cameron would produce the flick, but that is where all good news surrounding the project ended.

For starters, the project was long considered to be unfilmable, and it did not help matters that del Toro wanted to stick to an R-rating, something that execs could not wrap their minds around in the late '00s/early '10s. It also did not help that the story was considered to be similar to Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which eventually came out in 2012.

As of 2022, the director revealed that he pitched the film to Netflix as part of his multi-year deal with the streaming giant and intended to craft a more intimate tale than planned.