THQ Cancels inSANE, Rights Returned to Guillermo del Toro

Publisher THQ (through its president Jason Rubin) has officially cancelled inSANE, the game project being handled by renowned writer and producer Guillermo del Toro alongside Saints Row: The Third developer Volition.

“We have decided not to pursue further pre-production on inSANE, and have returned all of our IP rights to Guillermo del Toro,” Rubin said. Insane has been labeled by the publisher as a project “outside of our core business.”

Del Toro could most certainly make use of the rights he still retains to the franchise in either game or film form – it’s simply a matter of time and if he chooses to pursue one of those options further.

THQ has mentioned (thanks to outreach by Joystiq) that the game “was in very early development,” and that “no teams/staff are affected by this decision.”

When additionally prompted about whether or not Del Toro would retain the rights to any created code or assets generated from the project so far, they were told, “The rights for the property have been returned to Guillermo for his future use/exploration.”

If you’re upset about this cancellation – don’t be. When you think about it, the only asset we’ve physically seen from this project has been the 2010 logo posted above – that’s it. At this point, the project might have simply been dead in the water, and this was THQ’s opportunity to excuse it from the “upcoming titles” list and transfer it to the “totally not ever coming out ever” list.

[via Joystiq]