This weekend Guillermo del Toro was on hand at the Director's Guild of America in midtown Manhattan as part of The New Yorker Festival series of talks. During the chat, he talked about a whole bunch of his project, obviously focusing on THE HOBBIT. Thankfully, he dished a little tid-bit on what his plans are for his version of Frankenstein, which was announced alongside a zillion other projects a few weeks back. Read on for the skinny.
Here's the juice from Comingsoon, click the link for details on THE HOBBIT:
"After he completes his work on the two "Hobbit" films in 2012, the prodigiously optimistic del Toro has a whole slew of projects to keep him occupied until 2017, including a new version of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, his long-delayed Lovecraft adaptation At the Mountains of Madness, a just-announced trilogy of vampire novels (the first of which he claims is already written), and his own version of Frankenstein.
Del Toro is an acknowledged fan of "Frankenstein." He has busts of Boris Karloff as the monster in his house. One of his biggest filmic influences, the 1973 Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive, revolves around a showing of the classic Universal Frankenstein. He has raved about Bernie Wrightson's illustrated version and the original Frank Darabont script eventually filmed as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Kenneth Branagh in '94 and all-but-disowned by Darabont. Del Toro's version, however, sounds decidedly different…
"I'm not doing 'Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.' I'm doing an adventure story that involves the creature. I cannot say much, but it's not the central creation story, I'm not worried about that. The fact is I've been dreaming of doing a 'Frankenstein' movie since I was a child. The one thing I can promise is, compared to Kenneth Branagh, I will not appear shirtless in the movie!""
Well, those that have read the novel know that the characters go everywhere, from Geneva to the barren wasteland on the Arctic for the glorious climax. I was hoping a faithful adaptation would finally be made, but whatever del Torro plans on doing is fine with me regardless. Hopefully he'll bring a lot of new elements to the table while still remaining faithful to the themes of the novel. I have no doubt that GdT will give us another great product to admire.
@Jerkofwonder: Actually, if we are speaking about the novel, then there couldn't be a sequel. (Spoilers, I guess) The creature at the end of the novel vows to destroy itself.
HOLY SHIT!!!.......i can't believe he's doing all these movies....i have always like his movies....minus king kong...i think he'll bring somnthing new and diff to the Frankenstein mytho....and the vampire trilogy..and the Fucking Hobbit!!...i think i'm gunna have a geekasm
Ok, in all fairness I can see how you can become mistaken, Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Heavenly Creatures) does look a lot like Guillermo del Torro (Hellboy, The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, Blade 2).
King Kong?? ...anyhow this news makes me hate the making of the hobbit even more. Del Torro is one of the most original directors of the moment and I truly think that making something as pre-baked as the Hobbit (surely they won't let him make it in his style, it obvious has to look like Lord of the Rings) is a true waste of his great talent. can't wait till 2012 when he can do al his own stuff again
Since del Toro reportedly admires Bernie Wrightson's atistic interpretations of the creature so much, then he would be wise to hire Wrightson on as a make-up design supervisor. Frank Darabont hired Wrightson to do design work for 'The Mist'. Wrightson's visual sensibilities would be ideal for a del Toro helmed 'Frankenstein' vehicle...
I'm not a big fan of remakes but I can tolerate a remake of a movie based off a book espeically a classic like Frankenstein or Dracula, both of which have been made thousands of times.
I actually enjoyed Mary Shelly's Frankenstein too but hearing that it was supposed to be a different movie has me interested into knowing how different it would've been had they stuck to the Darabont script. I am excited to see where Del Toro takes Frankenstein.
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