While at the red carpet premiere of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Guillermo Del Toro told Shock Till You Drop that his project after The Hobbit films will be an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. What stood out for me was when he said Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein was “the only vision… of the monster I’ve ever latched onto…”
That’s awesome!
The thought of Del Toro, an amazing filmmaker using Bernie Wrightson’s faithful adaptation to create the look of the monster has me really excited. But why stop there? How about basing a lot of the production design of the movie on Wrightson’s material? Maybe hiring Bernie would be a fantastic idea! (Hint hint).
When I was much younger, I fell in love with Frankenstein; I loved the Karloff version best, and have been collecting little Frankenstein tchockies since then. My love of of the story and character rivals my passion for Iron Man, fyi. When I was probably 9 or 10, I read parts of Wrightson’s Frankenstein and was both mesmerized and horrified. Here was a monster that looked terrifying, and also like nothing I’d ever seen before. The book was created over a seven year period and was originally published in 1983.
Before Del Toro can tackle this project for Universal Studios (after The Mummy and Wolfman updates), he’s going to be pretty busy for the next 4+ years working on The Hobbit films, to be released 2011 and 2012. He told Shock Till You Drop, “I think it’s going to have to be developed very carefully over the next four years.” He also said he won’t be remaking the 1931 Karloff classic, directed by the great James Whale, nor its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.
Del Toro also said he wants Doug Jones to play the monster, which surprised me. I would’ve thought Ron Perlman, like everyone else. Jones (Abe Sapien and other creatures in many of Del Toro’s films) expressed his enthusiam, “You’ve just made my day! I never knew that!”
I suspect Del Toro will want a little vacation and then get to work for a 2013 or 2014 release for Frankenstein.
Wrightson and Dark Horse Comics are publishing a new version for the book’s 25th anniversary. It’ll be out by Halloween 2008 and you can pre-order it here. And check out Bernie Wrightson’s website; his artwork on many horror and non-horror comics, like Swamp Thing (which he co-created), is amazing. I truly fell in love with his and Jim Starlin’s work with the terrifying Batman: The Cult!
Source: Shock Till You Drop, Wrightson’s Frankenstein (not recently updated)
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