Guillermo del Toro is a master of crafting unique creatures on screen. He demonstrated his skills with his breakout film Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, and has continued to do so ever since. Non-human creatures can be seen in everything from The Shape of Water to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
This year, del Toro helms one of the most classic monsters of all time, Frankenstein’s monster. The director is releasing his own adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He will partner with Netflix for the feature, returning to work with the streamer for the first time since Pinocchio.
Set for release this November, the film will feature Oscar Isaac as Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Euphoria‘s Jacob Elordi as his monster. The supporting cast includes Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Ineson, Charles Dance, and David Bradley.
In many ways, Frankenstein is the perfect project for del Toro to take on next, given his vast experience portraying creatures on screen. However, there was a world in which del Toro’s version of Frankenstein would not have come to fruition in its current form.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein Can Exist Thanks To The Dark Universe’s Failure
Universal Almost Made Their Own Frankenstein Movie
Del Toro has been wanting to make a Frankenstein movie for nearly two decades now. Back in 2007, del Toro stated in an interview that he “would kill to make” a Frankenstein movie and envisioned this film as a faithful “Miltonian tragedy.”
At one point, Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem was in talks to portray the monster in Universal’s reboot of Frankenstein.
At the time, however, Universal was in the process of making the Dark Universe franchise. Per the company’s original plans, these movies would allow the crossover of classic monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Mummy.
At one point, Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem was in talks to portray the monster in Universal’s reboot of Frankenstein. This film was in talks around 2017, so it would likely have come out in the last few years.
The Dark Universe franchise fell apart, however, when the Tom Cruise movie The Mummy utterly failed in 2017. The movie was a critical and commercial flop, and led the production company to cancel the other planned films, including Bardem’s Frankenstein.
If the Dark Universe franchise had succeeded, it is unlikely that del Toro’s Frankenstein would have been made at this time. The movie would not have been considered viable if a major studio had just made a film based on the same text. So, the Dark Universe’s failure opened doors for del Toro.
This is a rare win for the director, whose career has been speckled with numerous unmade pᴀssion projects, including an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. Frankenstein will finally give him the chance to adapt a timeless classic after so many years, and he has Universal’s cancelled plans to thank for it.
