Guillermo del Toro is still hoping to bring life to his adaption of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness."

Creating and directing an R-rated, big-budget spectacle based on Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos novella has been a passionate project for del Toro.

However, when the project was poised to enter production earlier this year, Universal Pictures became skittish about embracing an R-rated horror film with a $150 million budget. Even the presence of "Avatar" writer-director James Cameron, who was to serve as a producer, and Tom Cruise as a possible star, did not sway the studio. As a result, Universal Pictures exited the project and del Toro was forced to shelf it.

Lovecraft's novella appeared in a 1936 edition of "Astounding Stories" and followed a Miskatonic University expedition to Antarctica that discovered both wonder and madness on a foreboding mountain range.

"I was really shaken by the 'Mountains of Madness,' the debacle; it was really difficult," del Toro said in an interview with Ain't It Cool News. "I think that what I want to do is make sure … ['Mountains of Madness'] has been with me for so long, that I want to make sure that we go into it with a studio that supports the right rating, the right format, and that it’s done the right way. But I quit making plans like that, because the last few years have taught me that the more you make plans, the more God laughs at you.

"But let me be very clear: I will do anything to do 'Mountains of Madness' the right way. It was a very hard decision not to compromise on the rating from the get-go. I still think the movie could end up being PG-13, but look at the issues we had with 'Don't be Afraid of the Dark,' we calculated it to be PG-13, and we didn’t get the PG-13. I don’t want to risk it; I don’t want to have a conversation about cutting intensity in 'Mountains of Madness.' It’s the Mount Everest of the weird tale; it’s one of Lovecraft’s most cherished works. I think there are four or five titles of Lovecraft that you have to approach with incredible caution, you know?"

In the meantime, del Toro is tackling another project with monsters, "Pacific Rim," for Legendary Pictures.

See more of del Toro's interview at Ain't It Cool News.