Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein premieres at the Venice Film Festival, showcasing a blend of ambition and artistry.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Vision for Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro‘s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein premieres at the Venice Film Festival today, with the filmmaker, cast, and Netflix executives present at the film’s Lido press conference.
Oscar Isaac as Dr. Victor Frankenstein
Oscar Isaac stars as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant yet egotistical scientist who brings a creature (Jacob Elordi) to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
Del Toro’s Ambitious Storytelling
When asked if he desired more than a three-week theatrical run for his big-budget spectacle, Del Toro humorously replied, “Yeah. I mean, look, look at my size. I always want more of everything.” He elaborated on the $120M movie, stating, “To me, the battle we are going to fight in telling stories is on two fronts: the size of the screen and the size of the ideas. The size of the ambition. Can we reclaim scale, and reclaim scale of ideas? It’s a dialogue, and it’s a very fluid dialogue. I’m very happy. You never know what’s going to happen….To reach more than 300 million viewers, you take the opportunity and the challenge to make a movie that can transform itself and evoke cinema.”
Personal Inspirations Behind the Film
Del Toro shared his inspiration for making the movie: “It was a religion for me. Since I was a kid — I was raised very Catholic — I never quite understood the saints. And then when I saw Boris Karloff on the screen, I understood what a saint or a messiah looked like. I’ve been following the creature since I was a kid, and I always waited for the movie to be done in the right conditions, both creatively and in terms of achieving the scope that it needed for me to make it different.”
The Role of AI and Humanity
Addressing the dangers AI and technology pose to humanity, Del Toro remarked, “We live in a time of terror and intimidation, certainly. And the answer, which art is part of, is love. For me, forgiveness is part of love and so many other things. The central question in the novel is, what is it to be human? What makes us human? There’s no more urgent task than to remain human in a time where everything pushes towards a bipolar understanding of our humanity. I think that the movie tries to show imperfect characters and the right we have to remain imperfect, and to understand each other under the most oppressive circumstances.”
Oscar Isaac’s Journey
Oscar Isaac described his journey since meeting Del Toro about the role two years prior: “I can’t believe that I’m here right now. I can’t believe we got to this place from two years ago, sitting at your table [looking at Del Toro] eating Cuban pork; just talking about our fathers and our life too…It was like a fusion. I just hooked myself into Guillermo, and we flung ourselves down the well.”
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Elordi’s Dedication to the Role
Elordi expressed his commitment to the role of the monster: “It was a vessel that I could put every part of myself into. From the moment that I was born to being here with you today, all of it is in that character. The creature on screen in this movie is the purest form of myself.”
The Culmination of a Lifelong Journey
At Netflix’s Tudum event earlier this year, Del Toro called the film “the culmination of a journey that has occupied most of my life,” adding, “Monsters have become my personal belief system. There are strands of Frankenstein through my films.”
Star-Studded Cast
Coming off his third Oscar win for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Del Toro’s Frankenstein also stars Mia Goth (X), Felix Kammerer (All Quiet on the Western Front), Lars Mikkelsen (The Witcher), David Bradley (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds).
Production Team
Del Toro directed from his own script and produced alongside J. Miles Dale and Scott Stuber.
