Guillermo del Toro talks about his own original Frankenstein story
Guillermo del Toro, possibly the most overbooked director in Hollywood right now, has spoken about his upcoming Frankenstein adaptation.
But according to the director, the film will not be an adaptation in the traditional sense. Del Toro explained to reporters:
“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!”
The Pan’s Labyrinth director has suggested Doug Jones for the part of the big green guy; Jones of course is the actor who created some of del Toro’s most iconic creatures, from Pan’s Labyrinth’s Faun and Pale Man to Hellboy’s Abe Sapien. “I think he can do a fantastic job. The only vision of the Frankenstein monster I’ve ever latched onto is Berni Wrightson’s [an illustrator who depicted the monster for an edition of Mary Shelley’s novel]. He’s lanky and long and it’s gorgeous in a tragic way. Doug has all of those qualities.”
After he completes his work on the two ‘Hobbit’ films in 2012, 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 finally Frankenstein.