During a chat with Collider, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro‘s has revealed that two-time Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Christoph Waltz has joined the cast of his upcoming retelling of the iconic sci-fi horror story, “Frankenstein.” Waltz is likely best known to audiences for working alongside director Quentin Tarantino in the period action films “Django Unchained” and “The Inglourious Basterds.” A film that del Toro says he’s been trying to make for 50 years but now believes he’s “crazy or brave” enough to attempt it now.
The actor joins a cast that already boasts talent such as Oscar Isaac (“Ex Machina”), Mia Goth (“Infinity Pool,” “Pearl”), and Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”).
You might remember that a while back when Universal was trying to resurrect the Universal Monsters franchise, an attempt was made by del Toro to get a new “Frankenstein” move off the ground there but ultimately that didn’t happen. Luckily, for the filmmaker since the story is from the Mary Shelley novel published back in 1818 and is in the public domain, he was free to try again at Netflix but would have to come up with his own Frankenstein design that doesn’t infringe the one copyrighted design by Universal Pictures.
There is now an assumption the design del Toro has landed on is from the late comic book artist Bernie Wrightson, who himself did illustrations for a version of the Frankenstein story (pictured in the above header image). His version of Dr. Frankenstein is the spitting image of Oscar Isaac, which could suggest that’s the role he’s been cast in. Wrightson also helped co-create DC Comics anti-hero “Swamp Thing,” a character that del Toro nearly put on the big screen in his incarnation of the “Dark Justice League” before he eventually moved on to other things.
Another tidbit about production was revealed too as they hope to get cameras rolling sometime in February, but likely will rely on the actors’ strike being resolved in the near future by the AMPTP offering/accepting a fair deal with the union.
Guillermo won an Oscar statue earlier this year for his other Netflix feature film, “Pinocchio.” And previously earned two other Oscars for “The Shape of Water” such as Best Picture and Best Director back in 2018, the filmmaker’s take on “The Creature From The Black Lagoon.”
You can watch his exchange with Collider below.
SOURCE: COLLIDER
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