James Cameron Gives Update On 'At The Mountains Of Madness'

After you write and direct a movie that makes over $2 billion worldwide, your mind itself becomes a commodity. So while James Cameron slowly preps his next directorial effort, Avatar 2, he's lending his filmmaking genius to a few other projects. One is Sanctum, the Alister Grierson directed 3D cave movie that hits theaters February 4. Then there's the Fantastic Voyage reboot, the Cirque du Soleil movie and others.

The really high profile one, though, is At the Mountains of Madness, the next film by director Guillermo del Toro based on the novella by H.P. Lovecraft. Cameron is producing the film, which is about incredible discoveries on an Antarctic expedition. The Billion Dollar Man was doing press for Sanctum when he offered up the latest update on the film, which will start shooting this summer. Read what he had to say after the jump.

Big thanks to Fearnet for the below quotes.

Of paramount importance is the up-to-the-minute update on the status of At the Mountains of Madness.

Oh we're very, very actively pre-producing the film right now with Universal. The design work is phenomenal, both the three-dimensional and two-dimensional design work, the physical maquettes, the CG test scenes; the artwork is phenomenal. The fans certainly won't want for a visual feast with this film. But there's [still] a bunch of number-crunching and "How you gonna do it?" and "How you gonna make it?"; "Where you gonna do it?" All that stuff.

As for why Cameron would lend his considerable filmmaking prowess to a movie he won't be directing, this is what he had to say.

One word, one man – Guillermo. We've been friends for twenty years. We've been trying to work together, really, for that entire time. And it has never quite congealed. We're both Lovecraft fans. Me from my college days, when I discovered Lovecraft. I think I read everything he wrote in about a month. I powered through it. And if anybody can bring Lovecraft to the screen it's gonna be Del Toro.

He's got a real vision for the film. It's very, very well-developed in his mind. You know, I'm just there to facilitate his vision. I don't have any strong sense of authorship; zero sense of authorship. I'm just there to try to get it made and help him do the movie that's in his head.

I'll admit, it's not the most exciting, groundbreaking update. There won't be one of those until we get some casting news. But since this is such a highly anticipated film, we thought you'd want the very latest.

What do you think of Cameron and del Toro's collaboration?