I woke up this morning to some really fantastic news. A project that I have been anticipating for months, Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness, had finally received the green light and would begin production in June with the director's chosen star, Tom Cruise, attached as the lead. But then everything began crashing down as quickly as it had been built up. Not only was the project not given the green light and Tom Cruise still unattached, but the director was being courted for another project right up his alley called Pacific Rim. If things didn't look bad before, allow me to deal one final blow: the dream is dead.

Criterion Cast shot Guillermo Del Toro an email today to confirm the earlier news that the project had been given the go-ahead by Universal. The director's response? "The opposite- Dead. – G." First announced last July, Del Toro and producer James Cameron have been battling the studio for months due to budget concerns. Universal was uncomfortable with the idea of making a $150 million epic horror film that would require $500 million in worldwide box office grosses in order to make a profit. While the studio has yet to comment, one can imagine that neither side was willing to budge on the price and the project was declared dead.

This. Really. Sucks. Through all of these months I've said that I couldn't imagine a better match than Del Toro and Lovecraft, and it's kind of crushing that it won't happen. The question that I'm left with is if this is truly the dead end of all dead ends. Is it possible to take it to a different studio? Could Cameron, and his billions and billions, finance it himself? I'd hate to imagine that we will never get to see Del Toro's vision. It's basically a crime.