The director, on hand to receive the Visionary Award at the annual star-studded event, was joined on stage by his Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth, as he spoke about how, at 61 years old, “I’ve come to believe that everybody’s born with one or two songs to sing. That’s it, and we keep repeating them and repeating them until we get them sort of right. And Frankenstein was the song I was born to sing.”
Del Toro told the crowd at the Palm Springs Convention Center how he approached the iconic tale by “making it about fatherhood and forgiveness, because I believe that we want to be forgiven and forgive. And now, very recently, something has became very clear to me. Three days ago, I lost my older brother but I’m here, and I’m here because the film speaks about a condition that is purely human; that is proved by the final phase in the film, which says the heart may break and the broken live on. Even a broken heart pumps the blood and keeps you going.”
“My brother and I played Victor and the creature on many moments in our lives,” he said in reference to Frankenstein‘s two main characters, and “many years ago, we granted each other love and granted each other peace. So I’m here for family.”
The filmmaker — who skipped the event’s red carpet — didn’t reveal his brother’s name or any details about his death, but announced “I may be absent at a few functions this [awards] season, but not this one. I’m here because this is family,” as he gestured to his stars. “Life gives you a family on the way.”
As the clock crossed midnight on Labor Day, the tide at this year’s Telluride Film Festival started to turn against Frankenstein. After Guillermo del Toro’s lavish adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel had launched in Venice days earlier to strong if not effusive reviews, star Oscar Isaac hopped on a plane to introduce the film’s secret, ultimately unfortunate North American debut at a late-night screening in the Colorado Rockies. I’ve been to screenings in Telluride like this before, where you can hear the restlessness in the room, feel the sense that it’s not playing as the filmmakers surely hope. My colleague Scott Feinberg wrote that the U.S. premiere “engendered a more muted response,” questioning its viability as an awards contender. Most coming out of that screening felt the same way.
Three months later, Frankenstein has re-emerged as a heavyweight, consistently racking up nominations totals in the same league as front-runners One Battle After Another, Sinners and Hamnet. (It’s up for best picture, directing, and acting at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards.) A best picture nomination suddenly seems assured, and Jacob Elordi is a strong supporting actor contender. While Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite played better in Venice, and Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly surged in Telluride, there’s no denying that del Toro’s film has secured the top spot among Netflix’s typically busy slate.
The robust response from audiences continues to fuel the momentum. Immediately after Telluride, Frankenstein was the runner-up for the Toronto International Film Festival’s crucial People’s Choice Award; it now has a 94 percent verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, among the best of any player in the field. Del Toro has been reposting fan art and testimonials of folks who’ve seen the movie over and over. “Because I’m Mexican, I have what I call the immigration test. When I go through immigration, if they say, ‘What are you working on?’ I say, ‘Oh, the movie’s not going to land,’” del Toro tells me. “But if they say, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see Frankenstein’ — which is what started to happen — I go, ‘Oh, it’s happening!’”
Guillermo del Toro and Oscar Isaac on the set of ‘Frankenstein’
Ken Woroner/Netflix
The film ranks within the Netflix platform’s top five most-viewed films of the year (within their first five weeks of release) and has been a quiet theatrical success. That latter point is key, since Netflix’s contenders rarely drum up much box-office noise in their qualifying runs — a point that’s been magnified in the conversation around Warner Bros.’ potential sale to the company (which is pending regulatory approval and the fending off of Paramount’s hostile-takeover bid). Indeed, while Netflix does not release box-office data — hence the “quiet” descriptor — Frankenstein has sold out just under 1,000 theaters globally, per sources familiar.
Two months out from its October release, it continues to play in theaters in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, and more cities around the country. “What is insane for me is the way the audience has reacted. I’ve never in 30 years had this reaction. It’s a massive tidal wave of affection,” del Toro says. “I’ve been getting public and private communications from filmmakers I absolutely adore and worship, that talk about the movie with admiration or with great pride.”
In conversations with voters and peers, speaking anecdotally, few filmmakers are brought up as often as del Toro. They’ve felt his support for their own careers. His chants of “fuck AI” at major industry screenings elicit regular cheers, and have become a refrain for like-minded filmmakers such as Rian Johnson. And it’s widely known that Frankenstein is the film that del Toro has long been working towards.
“Since I’ve known you — and that has been awhile — you’ve always talked about, at some point, doing a Frankenstein,” del Toro’s longtime buddy Alfonso Cuarón told him at a recent industry screening. “Your awareness of Frankenstein and cinema go hand in hand.” Meanwhile, Margot Robbie said at a separate event, “I feel like, Guillermo, this is your magnum opus — this is the movie you were born to make.”
Celebrity moderators of post-screening panels for guilds and Academy members are now a staple of any all-out Oscar campaign, but this season, there’s no equivalent for who’s come out for del Toro. Among them, in addition to Robbie and Cuarón: Bill Hader, Jon Favreau, Jason Reitman, Ava DuVernay, Bradley Cooper, Celine Song, Emerald Fennell and Hideo Kojima. Above, you can watch Martin Scorsese emceeing a larger discussion for the film. “It’s a remarkable work, and it stays with you,” he said to the audience. “I dreamed of it.”
Del Toro has already won an Oscar for a Netflix film, with his dark stop-motion take on Pinocchio from 2022 taking home the best animated feature trophy. He’s also a recent best picture and best director winner for 2017’s The Shape of Water. But the Academy’s growing affection for the Guadalajara native arguably became most obvious a few years back, when his divisive and less-seen noir remake Nightmare Alley still eked out a best-picture nod.
Just how far del Toro can run with Frankenstein remains to be seen — the film remains on the bubble for both writing and directing nominations — but his genuine enthusiasm for simply promoting and speaking about it continues to work wonders for the campaign. Even if it’s simply del Toro’s way of coping with having completed his life’s work. “In the middle of the shoot, and then in releasing the movie, I realized that I was entering the most massive postpartum depression,” del Toro admits. “It feels overwhelming, and it leaves you without a horizon.” Fortunately, this creature isn’t just alive, but growing by the day.
Mary Shelley’s Frankensteinhas been a story told time and time again. But there is something special about Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the novel. The creation of science-fiction itself has left many of us connecting more with his take on the Creature more than other adaptations. And rightfully so!
Jacob Elordi’s take on Frankenstein’s “monster” is one of the most caring and sweet portrayals of the Creature I have seen in cinema. Often, Frankenstein’s monster is the villain of the story. He’s terrifying, violent, and meant to be a…well, monster. What del Toro and Elordi did was make the Creature the victim in Victor’s (Oscar Isaac) world.
The Creature gets to tell his side of the story and it is filled with wonder, compassion, and a desire to be loved and wanted. It is beautiful to see play out and it makes it clear that Victor’s quest for knowledge and playing God is what makes him out to be the villain instead of the Creature taking that title.
To me, that has always been the case. This being was created by a man who thought science could provide life and didn’t stop think what that would mean for the being he created. Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation forces the audience to look at what Victor did and see how his drive was his downfall and turned him into the monster of the story.
A beautiful portrayal by Jacob Elordi
(Ken Woroner/Netflix)
There is an earnest energy to Elordi’s Creature. He is curious and sweet and it is contrasted beautifully by Elordi’s height. The Creature may loom over many of the people that he meets but he really is just a man that wants to know more about the world and have justice after Victor left him for dead.
All of that meant a lot to me as I was watching Frankenstein. The Creature wasn’t forced into some villainous turn and when the film does make it seem like the Creature will hurt anyone in his path, he makes it clear that he’s just protecting himself and trying to get to Victor for answers. Well, he probably would hurt Victor but maybe it is justified given how Victor treats him.
There is just something magical in the way that Elordi plays the Creature. His loneliness is beautiful and upsetting all at once and getting to see how Elordi uses that to drive the Creature make this adaptation of Frankenstein something special.
Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is the Editor in Chief of the Mary Sue. She’s been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff’s biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she’s your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell’s dog, Brisket.
Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.
As is tradition, whenever a hot new genre film hits the scene, fans can’t help but pit the two cinematic marvels against each other and debate which one is better. Those two films of the moment, at least as far as horror is concerned, are Robert Eggers’ Nosferatuand Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
Instead of giving in to that cinephile debate-bro impulse, fans should take a “holy shit, two cakes” approach to the phenomenon of getting two remarkable remakes of classic horror cinema practically back-to-back. After all, why should two icons be compared when they are, in fact, the best organic outcome of that lofty shared dark universe properties initiative that never got off the ground? To scope out where this is going, the secret to their success was that they emanated self-respect, treating themselves as art rather than a play for established intellectual property (even though they are, at the end of the day, both distant franchise “cousins”). They stood ten toes down on creative vision, uncompromising freedom, and a tight script—things that feel old hat nowadays and should be celebrated for it.
So let’s do that. I’ll start.
The Problem With How Contemporary Pop Culture Films Are Made
The film industry, as we know it, has gone pop culture crazy, mimicking the decades-long release calendar rollercoaster of box-office success that Marvel and the DC Universe had every studio exec fiending to jerry-rig with whatever intellectual properties they had in the cut. But the problem with that, as many comic book fans who cry superhero fatigue have reckoned with, is how artless the whole rigmarole has come to feel. Like a Fortnite-ification of cinema, properties have been treated like toys in a grander toy box, where the exercise of mashing them together would be bound to pack theaters and stuff pockets. Space Jam 2 did it and was a giant airball. The Monsterverse Godzilla and King Kong movies (while a fun exception) are doing it.
And now, in the wake of ever-expanding, interconnected comic book universes, everything is turning into studios champing at the bit to weaponize nostalgia into films that are films in name only: They’re feature-length advertisements. Take the lineup of films Mattel, hot off Barbie, is planning to make, including:
Somewhere along the way, in chasing the dragon of Marvel and DC success, product placement—whether literal or the symbol of a broader brand—became film fodder. And it sucks that the same, now-dated commodification impulse to appease audiences is still in effect today—despite repeated failed attempts along the way. To bring things back to Nosferatu and Frankenstein, take the “Dark Universe,” for example. This cinematic universe combusted before it even got off the runway. A would-be film universe that would’ve combined the canceled Bill Condon’s Bride of Frankenstein, Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, and a Johnny Depp-led The Invisible Man. Now, whenever the phrase “Dark Universe” is uttered, it’s immediately followed by jokes about what went wrong in blogs and YouTube videos. The answer is pretty obvious: they were a backward way of making films as products rather than art, and, hoisted by their own petard, they failed before seeing the light of day.
Whether it’s the Dark Universe or the endless stream of movie announcements that will flood the internet long after this blog is posted—leaving readers scratching their heads about why it’s being made into a film before the inevitable dollar sign pops into view—all of these contemporary films end up following the same track. Too often, movies don’t feel like they’re allowed to simply be movies anymore.
Of course, the success stories in this regard are still chugging along. Marvel films are announced like Moses descending from Mount Sinai at comic conventions, with a slate of logos and concept art (but no script). They cart out hot actors or directors riding the momentum of a newly released genre film during award season, assume notoriety will guarantee greatness, and then staple them onto projects—gesturing to the past as an assurance of future success under their banner.
Sometimes, they never even materialize. Other times, their creation-by-committee approach to art just doesn’t hit for layman audiences. But rather than blame the studios for their helicopter-parent planning and meddling, the same actors’ and directors’ faces are plastered across thumbnails as patsies for their Sisyphean failures.
Frankenstein and Nosferatu‘s Successes Should Be the Blueprint
Nosferatu and Frankenstein, despite being remakes and adaptations themselves, feel so novel because they weren’t made as content meant to linger in the catalogue of a streamer. They were made as films. You can see the craft patched into every frame. Be it the use of miniatures, insistence on period piece accuracy, or its creator’s disdain for the buzzword du jour of Hollywood: AI. Decisions, both big and small, are night-and-day evidence to audiences that Nosferatu and Frankenstein are films cut from a different cloth—hence the ongoing online debate over which is the best—because their status as films that prioritize craft over commodity is undeniable.
Sure, their late-fall/Christmas releases lend credence to points of comparison. Their shared promoting of the film in a way that doesn’t give the whole game away from frame one of its trailers is another shared quality they have—a vibe that most other films can’t seem to shake, being unsure of themselves by giving the whole game away, spoilers or no, to get butts in seats. Instead, both films teased the familiar monster characters without leaning too hard into their mythic tropes. But what’s got everyone so gung-ho on these films is that they feel like something to chew and stew on as pieces of art, to rewatch and arrive at new meaning, rather than something meant to be passively watched by as many people as possible, made with signals that are so homogenized and samey that they feel more like laminated cinematic experiences in comparison to the visual and thematic tactility of Frankenstein and Nosferatu.
And who can blame fans for turning these films into their personalities? Eggers’ Nosferatu thrives in the macabre, combining gothic atmosphere with sexual repression, turning the story into a meditation on acceptance, reconciliation, and redemption. On the flip side, del Toro’s Frankenstein distills horror into something deeply relatable: generational trauma and the burden of ending cycles of abuse. Those are incredible feats for both films to achieve, elevating them from mere remakes to statement pieces in their own rights, with messages that are still on the audience’s minds to this day.
Because of these reasons, Nosferatu and Frankenstein shouldn’t be pitted against each other in some gladiatorial “pick one” scenario. They should be celebrated together. Both works went for it. Both embody freedom, creation, and artistry as films. They should be the blueprint for how pop culture films should be made. By that same token, we shouldn’t look to these directors to helm new film adaptations. They should inspire Hollywood to take a chance on hungry creatives to make future horror film adaptations of their ilk—a Carmilla, The Picture of Dorian Gray, or a Phantom of the Opera—that embrace that same boldness Eggers and del Toro were allowed to display—not off their tenure as creatives, but as a means of making films that strive to be resonant rather than commercial. Horror films often get shafted in the court of “serious” film discussion and awards circles, dismissed as disposable, but these prove they can be beacons for new voices. We can have it all.
Nosferatu and Frankenstein should be cold water to the face of Hollywood—a reminder that creatives must be allowed to create, not forced into monotonous cycles of rehash and reheat in a desperate attempt to capture lightning twice. These films prove that remakes of classic horror, when freed from rights-holding obligations and the keep-the-car-warm navel-gazing of blockbuster logic, can feel inspired and moving rather than exhausted.
Upcoming works like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! and Eggers’ own Werwulf promise to carry that momentum forward, treating monster movies as art instead of content. That’s the lesson here: celebrate them not as rivals, but as reminders that films should be allowed to be films. Not just numbers ticking upward, not just filler for a streaming catalogue, but works that feel tapped in—works that let the freak flag fly, unapologetically, and remind us why even pop culture films matter.
“Hi, I am Guillermo del Toro, director of “Frankenstein.” “Life!” We are at a disciplinary hearing for Victor at the Royal College of Medicine in Edinburgh. And watch that little ball. I shot this as Victor narrating his past. So it’s idealized the way he remembers it. He remembers himself to be the hero, and he remembers himself to capture the attention of everyone. The red ball is a symbol of his mother’s death and his quest for immortality. The color red in the movie does. We introduce Harlander through these golden shoes and the rudeness of his manner. This is played by Christoph Waltz and he will finance Victor. This scene was meant to be shot, always roaming, looking for Victor. “Now there lies the challenge.” “That should be our concern.” “It should be.” I free the camera. I make it follow things. I make it zoop in a crane like this one. It’s like he’s giving a little concert. We’ve dressed him very much like a rock star with a flared shirt and the red of the cravat. That is again the quest for immortality. And his mother. The batteries. We introduced them here. These red batteries that will become key to the resurrection of the body of the creature and his experiment. And the idea was to make it very much like a tribunal. The symbol of the movie constantly around Victor is a circle. So the theater is in the shape of a circle. There are circular windows, et cetera because this has circular narrative that opens and ends in the frozen North. Now, this, I thought, was a really good way to demonstrate not only the technique of stitching, but also a little bit of a preview of what the creature may look like. We do that through this anatomical assembly and some of the anatomical waxes in Victor’s apartment. This is completely done analog. There is no C.G. creature. This moment I love. I call it the Spielberg pause, which Steven Spielberg does by cutting three times to people expecting to see something. This is a really nice little shock when the creature comes to life. And as I said, this is entirely a puppet. There are blue screen puppeteers behind it, and there’s a radio control and cable control. And now, Victor, the way Oscar Isaac plays it, And the way we dressed him, was meant to evoke like a bohemian in the ‘60s. A little by little we will introduce a broad brim hat, flared pants, little heeled boots that remind you of the anti-establishment that he is meant to represent, the progress in his mind. “Are you sure?” This catch, by the way, is completely real. It was caught by the puppeteers and one puppeteer was puppeteering the head; another one, the hand, and the way they interact is beautiful. Victor, and the way I set up the scene, is moving around, but is moving around a completely immobile tribunal. So for a while he manages them to be still and judging him in a severe way. And then the battle comes in into the arena. “Why not quantify it?” “This is unholy!” And Victor uses the ball again. He’s used it to send the points back and forth to the judges. And when they invoke God, he loses his patience and throws the ball. And there’s a beautiful shot where Harlander catches it. And that is the change of perspective. Harlander will have the ball with him when he goes and visits him into his lab. And I think what is great about this scene is that it establishes all at once Victor’s quest, Victor’s intentions, his temperament, and the absolute lack of uncertainty, which every tyrant, every villain really has. And he thinks himself to be a victim.
There’s a reason the story of Frankenstein endures. Its examination of mankind’s hubris and inhumane scientific progress has only become more relevant since Mary Shelley’s time. The pursuit of “innovation at all costs” has led to new monsters, born from people who failed (or refused) to consider the consequences of their actions. So it’s no wonder that Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix adaptation feels so much like a modern day tech bro. He is practically their template.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a remix of the major elements of the novel — there’s the doomed love story, the mad scientist driven by his ego and the sympathetic monster who demonstrates far more humanity than his creator — refashioned in the director’s opulent style. But it’s also clear from the film’s explosive opening, where an Arctic ship encounters Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) being chased by a seemingly unkillable Creature (Jacob Elordi), that del Toro isn’t shying away from his campier horror roots. Arms are torn off, gallons of blood are spilled. This Frankenstein contains multitudes.
Why did Victor Frankenstein go through hell to reanimate the dead? Because he could. In the novel and this film, the whole ordeal was always about bragging rights and demonstrating his greatness as a scientist. He didn’t consider what he owed to the new life form, or the cruelty of bringing a being into the world with no companion. It didn’t matter who he hurt. Sound familiar?
Mia Goth and Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein (Netflix)
What truly makes del Toro’s Frankenstein work is his understanding of the characters. As Victor Frankenstein, Oscar Isaac embodies the punk rock charm of a rebel scientist who thinks he alone can invent a way to reanimate life. But he also lives with the memory of an abusive father who likely killed his beloved mother. Elizabeth fascinates and intrigues Victor, but she’s also disgusted by his apathy for the natural world. It’s not hard to see why she feels immediate sympathy for the Creature, who is portrayed by Jacob Elordi as a sort of child-like super human. He’s an immediate disappointment to Frankenstein, who can’t help but repeat the cycle of abuse he experienced with his father.
Looking back at his career, it’s as if del Toro has been trying to adapt Shelley’s novel through all of his films. You can see elements of the story in his debut feature Cronos, which centers on a device that makes people immortal (but also curses them with a thirst for blood). The tragic father and son relationship between Frankenstein and the Creature is mapped directly onto the evil vampires in Blade 2. The Gothic romance between Frankenstein and his sister-in-law Elizabeth (who also has eyes for the Creature) echoes Crimson Peak. And the desire for a seemingly “evil” being to fit into normal human life is front and center in del Toro’s Hellboy films.
Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein (Netflix)
In an interview with NPR, del Toro mentioned that, as a child, seeing the monster appear for the first time in the 1931 Frankenstein film was “an epiphany.” It was an experience that helped him understand his own faith, and seemingly his entire view of life and art. His Frankenstein is the work of someone who has been living with the story for decades. It comes to life with lavish sets, his love of voluptuous colors (there’s a scene of a red scarf floating in the air that haunts me) and his fascination with the macabre.
There’s a lesson in Frankenstein for today’s tech elite, but given their current obsession with AI despite its potentially massive societal and environmental impacts, I have little hope they’ll learn anything from it. But when Guillermo del Toro was asked about using generative AI by NPR, he spoke as someone who truly understood Shelley’s novel. “I’d rather die,” he said.
The earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and Tracy Morgan returning to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The upstairs-downstairs drama “Downton Abbey” bids farewell in a final movie, Kim Kardashian plays a divorce attorney in Hulu’s “All’s Fair” and Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year.
New movies to stream from Nov. 3-9
— Guillermo del Toro realizes his long-held dream of a sumptuous Mary Shelley adaptation in “Frankenstein” (Friday Nov. 7 on Netflix). Del Toro’s film, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster, uses all the trappings of handmade movie craft to give Shelley’s classic an epic sweep. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr wrote: “Everything about ‘Frankenstein’ is larger than life, from the runtime to the emotions on display.”
— Matt Shakman’s endearingly earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Wednesday on Disney+) helps alleviate a checkered-at-best history of big-screen adaptations of the classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn play Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, respectively. In 1964, they work to defend Earth from its imminent destruction by Galactus. In my review, I praised “First Steps” as “a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.”
— “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” (Friday, Nov. 7 on Peacock) bids goodbye to the Crawleys 15 years after Julian Fellowes first debuted his upstairs-downstairs drama. The cast of the third and final film, directed by Simon Curtis, includes Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Paul Giamatti. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that the film gives “loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey.” Peacock is also streaming the two previous movies and all six seasons of “Downton Abbey.”
— “The Materialists” (Friday, Nov. 7 on HBO Max), Celine Song’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2023 breakthrough “Past Lives,” stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in a romantic triangle. The New York-set film adds a dose of economic reality to a romantic comedy plot in what was, for A24, a modest summer hit. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck called it “a smart rom-com that tries to be honest about life and still leaves us smiling.”
— The legendary Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year. “Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle,” out Friday, Nov. 7, is exactly what it sounds like: Nelson offering new interpretations of 11 classic songs written by Merle Haggard. And we mean classics: Check out Nelson’s latest take on “Okie From Muskogee,” “Mama Tried,” “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink” and more.
— Where’s the future of the global music industry? All over, surely, but it would be more than just a little wise to look to Brazil. Not too dissimilar to how Anitta brought her country’s funk genre to an international mainstream through diverse collaborations and genre meddling, so too is Ludmilla. On Thursday, she will release a new album, “Fragmentos,” fresh off the heels of her sultry, bilingual collaboration with Grammy winner Victoria Monét, “Cam Girl.” It’s a combination of R&B, funk and then some.
— Tracy Morgan returns to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch.” Morgan plays a widowed empty-nester whose world is turned around when his adult children move home with his grandkids in tow. The Paramount+ series debuts Monday.
— Kim Kardashian says she will soon learn whether she passed the bar exam to become a lawyer, but she plays a sought-after divorce attorney in “All’s Fair,” her new TV series for Hulu. Kardashian stars alongside Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Naomi Watts and Teyana Taylor in the show about an all-female law firm. Ryan Murphy created the show with Kardashian in mind after she acted in “American Horror Story: Delicate.” It premieres Tuesday on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
— The old saying about truth being stranger than fiction applies to Netflix’s new four-episode limited-series “Death by Lightning.” It’s a historical dramatization (with some comedy thrown in) about how James Garfield became the 20th president of the United States. He was shot four months later by a man named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), who was desperate for Garfield’s attention. Two months after that, Garfield died from complications of his injuries. It’s a wild story that also features Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham. The series premieres Thursday.
— HBO offers up a new docuseries about the life of retired baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. “Alex Vs. A-Rod” features intimate interviews with people who are related to and know Rodriguez, as well as the man himself. The three-part series premieres Thursday.
— The next installment of “Wicked,” called “Wicked: For Good,” flies into theaters Nov. 21 and NBC has created a musical special to pump up the release. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande lead “Wicked: One Wonderful Night,” a concert event that premieres Thursday on NBC and streams on Peacock Friday, Nov. 7. Additional film cast members like Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode and Ethan Slater appear as well.
— It’s going to be a while until the next Legend of Zelda game, but if you’re craving some time with the princess, check out Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. In this spinoff, a prequel to 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda travels back in time to join forces with the Six Sages in a war against the invader Ganondorf. You can also drag another human into battle with split-screen or the GameShare feature on Nintendo’s new console. Like the previous collaborations between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, it’s more hack-and-slash action than exploration and discovery. It arrives Thursday on Switch 2.
Guillermo del Toro revealed he and Isaac were on the same page from day one: “I think that one of the things we connected over that dinner was our Latinness. Because obviously the shadow of the father looms differently in the Latin family, I believe.”
Isaac supplied, “[The] patriarchal thing, it’s so strong.”
The director nodded at his actor’s assessment of the way patriarchy comes into play in his film in a different tone due to their upbringing: “[And] the melodrama, and the drama of being blind to those flaws, you know, it’s very Mexican.” The filmmaker shared that he showed Isaac 1949’s La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep) by Mexican filmmaker Ismael Rodríguez, which stars Pedro Infante, the iconic figurehead of machismo masculinity of a bygone old cinematic era—think Clark Gable en español.
Isaac shared how he sprinkled some of the star’s on-screen presence as he made his Victor’s masculine energy inspired by the Infante’s sweeping movements when he played key scenes, “We used that one moment when Jacob [Elordi] comes back to ask for a bride,” and described how the creator responded to his creature’s request, “and I just kind of walked by him and pushed him away. That was a little nod.”
From a filmmaking standpoint, del Toro elaborated on his intentionality: “Those moments for me are things that you determine only from a Latin culture. The swarthy Catholicism of the film. But I think the sort of pageantry of Catholicism, which verges on the operatic, you know, the intensity of emotions,”
Isaac agreed, “That’s why we talk about it being a story of outsiders. I talked to you a lot about that first meeting, which was like feeling like an outsider from the moment that [I] came from Guatemala to this country and constantly moving around and always feeling like a bit of an other.”
Isaac explained how this was something he experienced in trying to prove himself over the course of his career to play outside of the stereotypical Latino roles as his career evolved. “That kind of fed into this kind of myopic view of, like, excellence. The only way I can succeed is by being excellent and better than everyone else at this thing. And no matter what it costs, you know, that was something that definitely, I think, fed into Victor.”
To del Toro, this made Isaac the right choice for his leading man in his lifelong dream project: “The Victor that I really believe would be a fresh Victor is a Victor that had swagger and sensuality and flair.” The filmmaker came to that conclusion from his experiences as a Latino, which ended up mirroring how he would see Victor’s final form in the eventual film as it came into fruition as “reclaiming that for not a British actor, not an Anglo actor,” as it related to his connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “We talked on the set and I said, ‘it’s not an accident that our Victor is played by, you know, Oscar Isaac Hernandez.’ And we reclaimed some of that energy.”
Isaac added how he tapped into that wavelength. “Yeah, exactly. At one point, you’re like, ‘A European would never make a movie like this’—the way that you were shooting it with these huge sets and also the way you direct; sometimes you’d be like, ‘I need the Maria Cristina,’” he said in reference to the classic telenovela move where an actor walks away to process an emotion before doing a dramatic physical reaction, whether it’s a full-body turn or gaping wide-eyed brows up in the high heavens look.
In Frankenstein it’s used with great gothic aplomb on purpose. Isaac shared the note del Toro gave him in a big moment opposite Mia Goth. “‘It was like you have to walk from his left shoulder past him and then you stop and you turn back,’” he recalled.
“It’s like a telenovela,” del Toro interjected.
Isaac reminisced, “You have to make this Mexican boy very happy,” he said in reference to the boy who grew up worshipping Frankenstein, who would at an older age approach him to play the complex anti-hero of Shelley’s text.
Affirming, del Toro added, “When people say, ‘What’s Mexican about your movies?’ I say, ‘Me. Yeah,” he laughed, celebrating how his culture permeates his creations. “What else do you want? I think you cannot deny what you are, who you are. And what moves you in any act of artistic expression ever, you know?”
Watch the rest of the interview below:
Correction: A previous version of this article cited Netflix as the source. In fact, it was originally shared by GQ.
Hosted by Jane Pauley. Featured: Combatting phobias; Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom; country superstar Kenny Chesney; “Frankenstein” director Guillermo del Toro; Ford CEO Jim Farley; Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and an avid long-distance runner; and a Colorado town’s celebration of tarantulas.
Director Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water”) hovered over a model representing the creature in his latest film, “Frankenstein.” “We made, I think, the most extensive, minute, anatomical putting together of the monster in the history of cinema,” he said.
He considered every tendon, every suture, every organ, and admits for some that can be a bit much. “Sorry about breakfast!” he laughed.
Director Guillermo del Toro shows Seth Doane the guts of Frankenstein’s creature.
CBS News
But to bring Victor Frankenstein’s monster to life in cinema, the filmmaker first was playing creator himself. Del Toro, who resurrected “Frankenstein” for Netflix as writer, producer and director, took “Sunday Morning” around a London exhibition detailing his elaborate vision for the gothic classic – from wardrobe and props, to his extensive notes, which he spent years writing.
There is also, in a glass case, the original text, inscribed from Mary Shelley to Lord Byron. “This is the one I would steal,” he joked. “I would do a full Pink Panther.”
The groundbreaking novel about a scientist who creates a living, feeling being mixes horror, romance, and humanity. It was penned by Mary Shelley, who finished it when she was just 19, more than 200 years ago.
So, why does her story endure? “Well, first of all, it was written by a teenager that was full of questions and rage and rebellion,” del Toro said. “You know, it’s the same questions we have now: What are we? Why am I human? Why am I here?”
Is it a coincidence that the film comes out around Halloween? “No! No!” he said. “To me, Halloween is all year long.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I live a house that has secret passages. I live in a house that is inhabited full of monsters,” he said.
“In your mind?”
“No, I built it! When I was forty-something, I invested everything I had into creating the house I wanted when I was 7.”
“Well, no wonder you wanted to make ‘Frankenstein’!”
“I have a room dedicated to ‘Frankenstein.’ I call it the living room.”
And what does he do in that room? “I say hello to all the figures in the morning, I write, I investigate, I design.”
A shrine to gothic horror: Frankenstein Hall, at filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s Bleak House.
Guillermo del Toro
He started experiencing life through literature, he says, growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico. But for him, “Frankenstein” was not just any story he’d read. “You really wanted to make this film,” I said.
“I gave it over 50 years of my life, so yes,” del Toro said. “It’s in all of my movies. All 13 movies have elements of the film. ‘Pinocchio’ is another prodigal father asking for forgiveness of his child. My first movie, ‘Cronus,’ deals with eternal life. ‘Shape of Water,’ certainly, the idea of the monster being of the same essence than the main female character, and the female character recognizing herself in it.”
Notes by Guillermo del Toro on the design of his film rendition of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” on display in London.
CBS News
“We are all creatures,” he said. “I mean, we have a world that tells you you shouldn’t be a creature, but in reality we’re all weird in some way.”
And in what ways is del Toro weird? “I was this strange, pale creature that liked to read, and I was a hypochondriac at age seven. I thought I had trichinosis. I thought have cirrhosis. And I studied medical manuals, and I would go to my mom and say, ‘I think I have a terminal cancer.’ So I was a weird, weird kid.”
And for del Toro, there is an appeal to monsters: “Monsters tell you, look, it’s okay to be you. It’s okay to be imperfect.”
“You say someone needs to tell you it’s okay to be you. Who was that person for you?” I asked.
“Boris Karloff, Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon! What is beautiful about monsters is they become patron saints of imperfection.”
Jacob Elordi as the Creature and Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein in “Frankenstein.”
Ken Woroner/Netfli
Boris Karloff’s 1931 portrayal of Mary Shelley’s monster is film history. In del Toro’s reimagination, Oscar Isaac is Victor Frankenstein, birthing a creature played by Jacob Elordi.
“Every day there was some new, beautiful, strange thing waiting for me to try and do,” said Isaac. “To be invited to do these kinds of things as a performer, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”
Asked what he did to become the creature, Elordi replied, “I don’t know if that will really fit into a news bit. I couldn’t tell you. It’s this elusive thing. Guillermo and I shared a language together immediately. I was, like, fully creatively ready to play something like that.”
Writer-director Guillermo del Toro and Jacob Elordi on the set of “Frankenstein.”
Ken Woroner/Netflix
Asked why he picked Isaac and Elordi for the roles, del Toro replied, “Eyes. I cast the eyes.”
I asked, “What do you see in their eyes?”
“Oscar had brilliance, madness, seduction and pain. And Jacob was completely open. He had an innocence and an openness and a purity in his eyes that was completely disarming.”
And did the filmmaker want his monster to be beautiful? “Oh yeah. 100%, it has to look like something newly minted,” he said. “Not like a repair job in an ICU.”
“But, there’s also a handsomeness, a sexiness to Jacob as the creature,” I said.
“Well, I was raised Catholic, and a lot of those crucifixions in Mexico have the loin cloth a little too low!”
“Were you thinking about that?”
“No,” del Toro said, “but my grandma certainly was!”
Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is rich with Catholic imagery, and inspired by all the monsters he grew up with – fuelling his lifelong cinematic mission.
I asked, “Do you feel any connection to the Frankensteins of the past?”
“To the myth,” he replied. “I mean, my first crush was Mary Shelley. I truly can tell you this, you are born to sing one or two songs in your lifetime. This is my song.”
“So, what do you do now? “
“Oh, I don’t know,” del Toro replied. “Macrame? Pottery?”
To watch a trailer for “Frankenstein” click on the video player below.
In this web exclusive, the Oscar-winning director talks about his latest film, his reimagining of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” and about his lifelong love of the mythic horror tale
The season of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is officially upon us, with the movie playing in select theaters before a global debut on Netflix on November 7th.
As the film’s trailers and early reviews have illustrated, the project just might be a masterpiece… one that tells its own sweeping tale while being incredibly reverential to both Mary Shelley’s source material and the larger cultural mythos of Frankenstein’s monster. For eagle-eyed fans, one particular name proves this in spades, giving a beloved comic creator their flowers.
Towards the end of Frankenstein‘s credits, the following phrase is displayed: “Frankenstein character design inspired in part by Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein Monster. Early concept development and early concept sculptures by Spectral Motion and Bernie Wrightson.”
There are many wonderful things we want to say about @RealGDT‘s FRANKENSTEIN. Every frame filled with love for the source & many other creative people. It is a gorgeous GRAPHIC (as in design not gore) movie. The color story is sumptuous. The final scene healing. And then this… https://t.co/fGB8pXx4BOpic.twitter.com/LHzrX8wRNf
For those who might be unfamiliar, Wrightson was a prolific part of the Silver and Bronze Ages of comics, especially in the ever-evolving horror subgenre on anthology titles like House of Mystery, Chamber of Darkness, and Tower of Shadows. In 1971, he and writer Len Wein co-created DC’s Swamp Thing, who has since gone on to inspire movies, shows, and crossovers few could have imagined. Wrightson’s distinct art style has made its way into countless comics, album covers, and even concept art for movies like Spider-Man, Ghostbusters, and Galaxy Quest.
In and amongst all of that, Wrightson devoted seven years of unpaid work, which he later called a “labor of love”, to illustrating Shelley’s Frankenstein. The art aimed to capture Shelley’s descriptions of the characters and settings, as opposed to any film adaptations that had existed at the time. The edition featuring Wrightson’s art was ultimately released in 1983, and has since gotten reprinted in multiple editions.
That brings us to del Toro’s Frankenstein… and actually, all the way back to 2008. At the time, the director had signed a first-look deal with Universal Pictures, during which he planned to bring his adaptation of Frankenstein to life. He cited Wrightson’s art as a major source of aesthetic inspiration, and had hopes of the creator designing the monster for the film.
A year later, makeup tests seemingly began with Spectral Motion, del Toro, and his frequent collaborator Doug Jones, who called the design “hauntingly beautiful” and reverential to Wrightson’s illustrations. In a recent interview with Fresh Air, del Toro did confirm that Wrightson “collaborated with [him] earlier on,” although the exact extent of that is unknown at this time.
Still, for those who have seen Frankenstein (or at very least, the viral behind-the-scenes photo of Jacob Elordi as the monster), Wrightson’s impact is undeniable. The character’s long hair, gaunt frame, and patchwork of flesh are undeniable… and when combined with Elordi’s acting, they craft something that is genuinely beautiful.
Part of me does wish that Wrightson’s credit in Frankenstein was even more promient, just given the way that most of the moviegoing audience is going to engage with the movie. By the time it arrived in our theatrical showing, the house lights were on, nearly everyone else had already left, and the servers were whizzing around us picking up trash and empty popcorn bowls. And I’m sure that once the movie is on Netflix, pop-ups autoplaying another title or asking to rate the movie will pull most people away from the credits entirely.
But at the same time, I’m still incredibly thankful that Wrightson is getting his flowers through this movie… and that he was able to be involved with the project directly in some way. When Wrightson passed away in 2017, it sent shockwaves through the comic community, with del Toro himself taking a 24-hour-long vow of silence in his honor. Now, with Frankenstein, his work is able to live forever in a whole new way.
Jenna Anderson is the host of the Go Read Some Comics YouTube channel, as well as one of the hosts of the Phase Hero podcast. She has been writing professionally since 2017, but has been loving pop culture (and especially superhero comics) for her entire life. You can usually find her drinking a large iced coffee from Dunkin and talking about comics, female characters, and Taylor Swift at any given opportunity.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankensteinis in theaters this weekend before its hits Netflix on November 7—and a full month from now, you’ll be able to read it, too.
Book publisher Insight Editions is releasing a 240-page hardcover of the film’s screenplay penned by del Toro that also includes a foreword by him, concept art, film stills, and behind-the-scenes photography. “From the tormented Victor Frankenstein to his tragic monster, del Toro’s unique artistic voice shines through every page,” reads the description, “offering an immersive experience for fans of both the original novel and del Toro’s cinematic genius.”
via Amazon
Previously, Netflix went and gave del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio movie from 2022 a similar treatment by releasing that film’s an art book and screenplay online for free. That went on to become an awards darling, racking up several wins including Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Already, Frankenstein has racked up wins during its run on the festival circuit, including the Gotham Awards’ Vanguard Tribute and the Graffetta d’Oro for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival.
Netflix would really like to repeat del Toro’s awards success and with Frankenstein, hence the limited theatrical release, and putting out its screenplay for fans of his work and the original 1818 novel by Mary Shelley further expands its reach. If you fall into either of those camps, the hardcover releases Tuesday, November 25 for $30.
Almost a year ago to the day, the promotional lead-up to 2024’s buzziest horror film, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, was still playing it close to the chest, abstaining from revealing Bill Skarsgård’s mustachioed Count and urging folks to flock to the theaters to see him on the big screen for themselves. In 2025, the promotional team behind Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein has dropped all pretenses, giving prospective moviegoers an eyeful of Jacob Elordi’s Creature in advance.
Unlike Nosferatu, commenters under the post were more than willing to air out their thirst for the 6′ 5″ undead creature.
Diverting from the train of thought on folks’ downbadness for Elordi’s character onto more artistic appreciations for his heavy makeup job, Variety reports Frankenstein’s production crew used 42 prosthetics to transform the Euphoria actor into del Toro’s monster. More specifically: 14 pieces for his head and neck. The Variety piece went on to detail that it took eight people 10 hours to apply Elordi’s full-body prosthetics. Furthermore, his prosthetics needed to be applied 50 times. In layman’s terms, that’s a lot of time spent in a makeup chair.
Netflix
Netflix
Netflix
Netflix
As mentioned up top, Elordi wasn’t the only actor to receive character poster social media treatment in the lead-up to Frankenstein‘s limited theatrical release. Joining him were castmates Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Mia Goth as Elizabeth Harlander, Christoph Waltz as Heinrich Harlander, and Felix Kammerer as William Frankenstein.
In io9’s Frankenstein review, we praised del Toro’s film, writing, “It truly feels like a movie he was meant to make. A filmmaker at the height of his powers. And he’s given us a film that, even with a few little issues here and there, we’re likely to enjoy from now until forever.”
Frankenstein is playing in select theaters, with plans to expand over the next few weeks. It’ll then premiere on Netflix on November 7.
The fact that Frankenstein is hitting theaters before it arrives on Netflix is no doubt due to Guillermo del Toro’s strong desire for his dream project to have a theatrical experience. It also helps that movies must have a theatrical run to qualify for award season.
The latter is one reason Netflix’s surprise hit KPop Demon Hunters had those limited movie theater screenings in August, with a return coming this Halloween due to popular demand.
But while KPop Demon Hunters hit screens across multiple theater chains, if you were hoping to see Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) in Frankenstein on the big screen, the opportunity is seemingly just as elusive as the monster himself.
While Netflix struck a deal with AMC theaters to show KPop Demon Hunters, Frankenstein will not be screening at any of the chain’s cineplexes. So if you’re like me, a paying member of AMC A-List, you won’t be able to slot it into your weekly movie plan. Many families budget in the flat A-List fee to see movies monthly; for Frankenstein, you’ll have to shell out full price to see it elsewhere and then—if you have kids too young to enjoy del Toro’s passion project—you’ll have to book a sitter on top of that.
But if you have an unlimited entertainment budget, you can find your closest venue on Guillermo del Toro and Netflix’s Frankenstein ticket site here. Just know that your nearest theater might not be so near, especially during opening weekend; it will expand next week.
Your chances are better if you live in a major city. To use Los Angeles as an example—a city with many, many movie theaters—you can only watch it at the Egyptian Theater (operated by Netflix) in Hollywood or make the drive to Santa Monica, where the Nuart Theater is playing it in 35mm.
New York City, meanwhile, only has three theaters playing it, including the Angelika Film Center, which has it in 35mm as well. The rest of the presentations are on digital unless you’re lucky enough to nab IMAX screening tickets (as of publishing, IMAX does not have a listing page for the film). Your best bet if you’re dead-set on seeing Frankenstein in IMAX is to call your local theater or check its website rather than simply going by the Netflix ticketing site.
As excitement builds for Guillermo del Toro‘s stylish Frankenstein movie, Penguin Books would like you to remember where the story began. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, a pioneering work of sci-fi, is getting a special tie-in release with Jacob Elordi‘s hulking, weirdly glamorous monster gracing the cover.
Frankenstein has, of course, been adapted many times over the years, with Boris Karloff’s Universal Pictures run as the monster providing the most indelible visual. Frankenstein’s monster (or “Frankenstein” if you don’t mind the inaccuracy) has long since become an established part of the creature pantheon, adorning Halloween decorations and popping up at Universal’s theme parks.
A tie-in edition pairing an old book with a new adaptation—which is not a new idea by any means; other recent examples have seen Wicked and The Long Walk get shiny new covers inspired by their respective movies—might make novel fans cringe, but it makes sense. And if Elordi’s (heavily made-up) face gets a casual consumer to read a literary classic, isn’t that the best outcome possible?
It also comes with an introduction by del Toro, offering further incentive.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, and Mia Goth, hits theaters for a limited release October 17; it arrives on Netflix November 7.
The tie-in edition of the book releases October 28; you can pre-order here. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published January 1, 1818.
After partnering with Netflix on Pinocchioand Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro is reteaming with them on a third film project.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, this’ll be The Boy in the Iron Box, a series of short stories the filmmaker co-created with Chuck Hogan. (Their second collaboration, following their Strain trilogy that was adapted into an FX series.) del Toro will produce the adaptation to be directed and written by David Prior, writer/director/co-editor of the 2020 cult classic The Empty Man. The upcoming film has also found its three leads in Rupert Friend (Jurassic World Rebirth), Jaeden Martell (Y2K), and Kevin Durand (Abigail). Production for the film will begin in October.
The Boy in the Iron Box tells the story of mercenaries who crash land on a remote snowy summit. In their efforts to find shelter, they stumble across a mazelike stone fortress deadlier than the wolves and freezing wind. The six novellas released for Kindle in 2024 via and each earned a solid reception. Friend will play mercenary leader Liev and Durand one of the men under his command, while Martell plays the titular Boy in the iron box found by the guns for hire.
We’ll have more on The Boy in the Iron Box as news emerges. Until then, you can read the books for yourself here, and see Frankenstein in theaters on October 17 before it hits Netflix on November 7.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Tatum said he was offered the role of the Beast in del Toro’s retelling of “The Beauty and the Beast.” However, because the “Roofman” star “just had a baby” at the time and the film’s script wasn’t “totally there yet,” he turned the role down. Tatum looks back on the decision as “one of the biggest mistakes” of his career.
“One of the biggest mistakes of my career: Guillermo del Toro wanted to do ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ his version of the Beast,” Tatum recalled. “And I’d just had a baby, I was on a movie that was absolutely killing me, and the script wasn’t totally there yet. I was just in a place in my head that I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this right now.’ It was the biggest mistake, because I’m the biggest Guillermo fan ever. And I think Guillermo doing ‘Beauty and the Beast’ would’ve been the sickest movie ever.”
Tatum didn’t actually miss out on anything since the film was never made. He hopes eventually he’ll be able to right his wrong and work with the three-time Oscar winner.
“He’s got a billion other things that he wants to do,” Tatum added. “He’s such a creator. I’ll probably never forgive myself on that one, but I hope we get to work together one day.”
Del Toro is currently making the rounds with his latest fantasy epic “Frankenstein,” which invoked a ecstatic 13-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival debut. The film stars Oscar Isaac as the titular mad scientist and Jacob Elordi as his grotesque creation.
While Venice was keen on del Toro’s latest, Variety film critic Peter Debruge was lukewarm. He wrote in his review, “[Del Toro’s] empathetic approach feels less revolutionary in ‘Frankenstein,’ since most versions of Shelley’s story feel for the brute, as opposed to his creator (played less like a scientist than a tortured artist by a long-haired Oscar Isaac). Boris Karloff embodied him as a tragic figure, crouched by the lake with the little girl, naive to the danger he poses for others. Now we get Jacob Elordi, looking like an emo jock or a wounded soldier, which is partly true, as he’s been reconstructed from the corpses of several.”
Guillermo Del Toro is renowned for a lot of things, but deeply devoted collector might not have been the first title you thought of. The director, who won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Feature for The Shape of Water (2017) and Best Animated Feature for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), has curated a private museum of film ephemera that he calls Bleak House…
Regrets, he has a few, Guillermo del Toro told the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday night. The good thing, though, those regrets are creative fodder for the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s next movies. “I’m 60 now. So I’ve gone from asking who I am as a father and son to regret. I’m in the regret decade. Expect a lot of regret,” the horrormeister said during a Q&A after a North American premiere of Frankenstein at the Royal Alexandra Theater in Toronto.
Speaking specifically about adapting Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus — with Dr. Frankenstein played by Oscar Isaac in the adaptation and Jacob Elordi the creature he gives birth to — del Toro said he aimed to craft a story about father and son issues. Then he eventually realized his narrative included his own experiences as both a son and a father.
“I had to realize that, in the course of being a son, I became a father. And then it became about me as a father too,” del Toro told the TIFF premiere audience about the movie he directed from his own screenplay.
Guillermo del Toro and Oscar Isaac on the set of Frankenstein
Ken Woroner/Netflix
Wider themes the director also discussed included “what does it mean to be human in a time of inhumanity, war and in a moment of doubt as a race. That was true back then, and it’s true right now,” he added about the contrast between Shelley in her Romantic-era novel questioning scientific ethics and alienation after the Enlightenment, and our own tumultuous time of rapid economic and climate change.
“The Romantics were reacting with emotion after the Age of Enlightenment. They were basically punks, they were iconoclastic and broke the rules of society,” he argued. “We are there again. Emotion is the new punk. Emotion, we’re afraid of showing it. We’re afraid of seeing it. We’re in such a state of separation within ourselves. That’s the only thing that will save us, to have empathy and emotion,” del Toro added.
Having completed his latest gothic epic, del Toro teased his next projects. “This sort of closes a huge episode in my life,” he said of completing Frankenstein, a passion project that had been virtually a lifetime in the making.
Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein in “Frankenstein” directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Ken Woroner/Netflix
His creative slate includes Fury, an upcoming feature reuniting him with Isaac that appears to center on a murderous dinner where guests get popped off between courses. “It’s going back to the thriller aspects of Nightmare Alley. It’s very cruel, very violent,” del Toro warned. The veteran of creature features is also at work on an “epic” stop-motion movie.
After its tour of the festival circuit, Frankenstein is headed for a limited theatrical release on Oct. 17. The feature, which also stars Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Christian Convery, Charles Dance and Christoph Waltz,will then head to streaming, getting a global bow by Netflix on Nov. 7.
The Toronto Film Festival continues through to Sept. 14.
