del Toro was evidently unwilling to budge on the film’s R-rated content. The New Yorker article states that it wasn’t designed to be a terribly gory film, but one full of deeply unsettling imagery that the MPAA wasn’t likely to give a PG-13 pass to. Ultimately, the film’s projected $150 million budget–even with names like James Cameron and Tom Cruise attached to the project in various functions–was deemed too unwieldy for the film that could not be marketed to a mass audience.
I love Del Tori’s work as most do. it is sad to see this project go. Del Toro has bounced back with another creature feature project called ‘Pacific Rim’, so the pain is short lived. There are however, many out there on the Net who want to make Universal look like bad guys. I’m not going to jump on that bandwagon. There’s nothing that prevents Del Toro and co-producer James Cameron to look to another studio in case they want to proceed. Studios kill projects all the time as much as they greenlight them. This WAS NOT an easy call to make. Was it the right one-?
