With the release of Guillermo del Toro’s film rendition of Frankenstein looming closer, Vanity Fair has put out a preview article this morning with new stills and interviews with del Toro, Oscar Issac, and Jacob Elordi. The piece also featured a first-look still of Elordi as the Monster, with additional images of Issac, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz in character as well.
Del Toro first revealed a teaser trailer for the feature at Netflix’s Tudum event in early June, where he professed how much this story has influenced him throughout his career, saying, “This is, for me, the culmination of a journey that has occupied most of my life. I first read Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein as a kid and saw Boris Karloff in what became for me an almost religious state. Monsters have become my personal belief system.” Del Toro further explained that he implemented themes of Frankenstein in his films throughout the years, naming Blade and Pinocchio as two big ones, the key theme being, “the relationship between humanity and monsters, creator and creation, father and son.”
In Vanity Fair’s interview, Del Toro does point out similarities between his previous works and this one, mainly Pinocchio, but primarily focuses on how different this feature will be not only from his other works but also from the original Frankenstein story, written by Mary Shelley, and the various adaptations. The filmmaker described it as “just doing a beautiful mass,” before continuing, “[Boris] Karloff looms eternal. Bernie [Wrightston] looms eternal. But we are not doing Karloff and we’re not doing Bernie, and we’re not doing Mary.” Del Toro concluded the answer by praising the three artists, stating, “Mary Shelley, Bernie Wrightson and Karloff are as important to me as my father and mother. They gave birth to who I am, period.”
This feature’s plot seems similar to Shelley’s original, with the story following the “brilliant but egotistical scientist Victor Frankenstein, who brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.” Issac will lead the film as Victor Frankenstein with additional performances by Elordi as the Monster, Goth as Elizabeth Lavenza, and Waltz as Dr. Pretorious. The rest of the ensemble includes Charles Dance, Ralph Ineson, Lars Mikkelsen, Felix Kammerer, David Bradley, Bum Gorman, and Christian Convery.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein will be available to stream on Netflix in November of this year.
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