Guillermo del Toro Eyeing a Cast for ‘Frankenstein’

Guillermo del Toro Wants Oscar Isaac, Andrew Garfield and Mia Goth For His Frankenstein Movie

The director, who recently picked up an Oscar for ‘Pinocchio’, is looking to realize a movie he’s long wanted to make.

Guillermo del Toro poses backstage with the Oscar® for Animated Feature Film during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

Having taken the stage at this weekend’s Oscars to collect the Best Animated Feature trophy for his ‘Pinocchio’, Guillermo del Toro is putting plans in place for follow-up movies.

We already know that he’s pushing ahead with a new animated project, adapting Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 historical fiction novel ‘The Buried Giant’ for Netflix, but it would seem he might also be setting his sights on another live-action film (especially since ‘Giant’ is being crafted in stop-motion and will likely take years to see the screen).

And this other movie is one that del Toro has wanted to make for more than a decade: an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale ‘Frankenstein’.

Frankenstein

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Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both... Read the Plot

Who does Guillermo del Toro want for ‘Frankenstein’?

According to Deadline, del Toro is in the early stages of finding his cast for this new adaptation. He’s reportedly had talks with Oscar Isaac, Andrew Garfield and Mia Goth for the three lead roles, though the trade site is quick to caution that there are no formal offers out to the actors but all three are eager to work with del Toro.

And who can blame them? The director won two Oscars for ‘The Shape of Water’ in 2018 and has long been considered an inventive, entertaining filmmaker.

What has del Toro said about ‘Frankenstein’ in the past?

“The only way to do the Shelley novel is to actually do a four-hour miniseries,” he told MTV in 2008. “But I think there permutations in which you can tell the myth in a different way.”

Obviously, he’s clearly found a way to make the story work as a movie –– though he’s still figuring out the script.

It’ll need to be something fresh –– Shelley’s book has been adapted many times in many ways for all sorts of media. But we can trust del Toro will bring his distinctive stamp to the story of the doctor who reanimates dead bodies and the creature he creates that faces hatred from the local villagers.

It’s the sort of subject that del Toro does so well –– finding the humanity in the monstrous and the monstrosities among humans.

This would be a high-profile cast for the director –– Isaac was most recently seen in the likes of ‘Dune’, ‘Big Gold Brick’ and Marvel’s ‘Moon Knight’ series. He’ll be heard as Miguel O’Hara in ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’, due in theaters on June 2nd.

Garfield is in demand at the moment; just yesterday he was reported as being in talks to star with Florence Pugh in ‘We Live in Time’. Goth was most recently seen in ‘Infinity Pool’ and is in the midst of working for a third time with Ti West on ‘MaXXXine’, the sequel to ‘X’.