del Toro talks about returning to Mimic (feature-film of Lovecraftian monsters in the New York underground system) after 15 years…

“Almost 15 years on, and del Toro has returned to the film he once regarded as something of a failure [due to interference by the film studio’s suits]. Digging around in Miramax’s film archives, del Toro salvaged the original footage, and returned with a re-edited cut of Mimic that trims out the second unit material he so disliked, and reinstated the atmospheric or character-based moments that irked studio heads back in the 90s. Out on Blu-ray on 31st October, the Mimic Director’s Cut is about as close as we’ll ever get to the film del Toro had rattling around in his head, before all those creative differences began…”

The DVD of the new cut includes lots of commentary, several ‘making-of’ items including “Reclaiming Mimic”, deleted scenes, and the original storyboard animatics.

One of the great Lovecraftian stories set in the NYC underground, “Far Below”, is to be reissued in the forthcoming Joshi-edited anthology Spawn of the Green Abyss (Centipede Press, sometime far into 2012). The story can also be found in the completely-unavailable Century’s Best Horror Fiction, Vol. 1, and also in the 2003 Wildside reprint of the 1974 book Far Below and Other Horrors from the Pulps.

Coming soon in Seattle, USA — a mini Lovecraft film festival. Lovecraft’s Visions runs at the Seattle Art Museum, 7th October – 9th October 2011…

“Lovecraft’s Visions will also include panel discussions on Lovecraft’s life, work and legacy, drawing upon the expertise of several noted scholars and writers.”

“There will be an Art Show curated by David Verba.”

Programme here.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Johnny Depp had bought the film rights to The Vault…

the underwater sci-fi story centers on a group of divers who, off the coast of Nova Scotia, uncover a sarcophagus with unusual remains and inadvertently unleash an ancient evil.

Said evil apparently has links to the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, and the Easter Island statues, etc. Nostrodamus gets a name check, rather than the Necronomicon. But in general it sounds fab and rather Lovecraftian and reminds me of Lovecraft’s story “The Temple” (1920). Apparently it’s out now as an ongoing comic-book series…

A great looking and believable [comic] series, it creates a real sense of danger and is the kind of adventure we rarely see in today’s spandex-epic driven market. — Broken Frontier.

The concluding third comic-book installment is due in October 2011 (don’t read the promo blurb for #3, if you don’t want a huge plot spoiler landed on you by the marketing idiots). Let’s hope the Hollywood machine doesn’t twist a movie version into just another forgetable Alien vs. Predator, or some dumb non-cosmic “it’s the Devil!” stuff.

Dejan Ognjanovic interviews the director of Arkham Sanitarium (an anthology film of: The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark), at the close of filming…

“we’re also faithfully recreating a number of Lovecraftian locations including The Shunned House, The Church of the Starry Wisdom, The Crowninshield Place, and Arkham Sanitarium itself (based largely on Danvers).”

The first carefully critical review (that I’ve seen) for the feature-length The Whisperer in Darkness. Tom Cruise isn’t in it, apparently. Darn.

Film Threat concludes…

“Branney nails the spirit of Lovecraft. Through voice-over narratives and frightened faces, The Whisperer in Darkness conveys a sense of human sanity being unraveled by too much forbidden fruit.”

There’s a new dedicated set of Web pages for the movie. The DVD should be out around… “October of 2011”.

The improbably titled Sun Break interviews the makers of the feature-length film adaptation of Lovecraft’s The Whisperer in Darkness.

Dejan Ognjanovic’s big preview of the script and concept/teaser/poster art for the forthcoming anthology-film Arkham Sanitarium (Oct 2011)…

“It seems that anthology format is better suited for Lovecraft’s shorter fiction: three short sharp shocks in a row are better than a single one padded for feature length. This, at least, must be the rationale behind the script written by Andrew G. Morgan based on “The Haunter of the Dark”, “The Shunned House” and “The Thing on the Doorstep”. His anthology H. P. Lovecraft’s Arkham Sanitarium is produced by Survivor Films, an independent film production company based in London, as their first feature-film. The filming of this low budget venture begins in May 2011 (on Friday the 13th!), with the movie planned for release in October 2011. What follows are my impressions of the screenplay. Briefly and simply put, this is a very, very good script.”

Three or four months to add the CGI, music score, and edit on a feature-length film is perhaps rather ambitious — but if they have a great script, a solid cast of veteran role-players, and talented and well-equipped crew on location then they’re halfway there. The release deadline of October suggests it’s possibly a “get it done before we go back to university” film?

To alleviate the disappointment of the news of the canning of del Toro’s Mountains, comes news that the much-awaited film adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness is completed.