This week, Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited adaptation of Mary Shelly’s classic Frankenstein will be added to your Netflix subscription, but if you can’t wait to see it or want to simply experience it on a big screen, you can see the film in select theaters right now.
I decided to do just that, and I have to recommend it to any movie fan who's a fan of the visual storytelling of del Toro. The film is visually stunning on a massive screen, and del Toro’s take on the source material, while largely faithful, also includes some intriguing changes. One of the director’s major additions to the story actually reminded me not of Frankenstein but of another classic story del Toro once wanted to make.
Before Frankenstein, Guillermo Del Toro Wanted To Remake Another Classic Story
While Guillermo del Toro has created some truly memorable original films, like his Oscar-winning The Shape of Water and his visually stunning Pan’s Labyrinth, he’s also a fan of classic stories. Before he remade Frankenstein, he gave his take on the classic Pinocchio, but before either of those, there was another classic story the director was interested in taking on: Beauty and the Beast.
Before Disney made its live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, Guillermo del Toro had his sights set on the French story of a woman who allows herself to be held prisoner in a castle by a monstrous-looking man. Ironically, Emma Watson was attached to star in the film before she took the equivalent role from Disney. Channing Tatum recently revealed he turned down the part of the Beast in the movie.
The movie would ultimately join At the Mountains of Madness as an unmade Guillermo del Toro movie. It’s unclear exactly why the project didn’t move forward, but one gets the distinct impression that del Toro really wanted to make that movie, because a piece of it feels like it was used in Frankenstein.
There Are Strong Beauty And The Beast Vibes In Frankenstein
In many ways, the new Frankenstein is one of the adaptations of Mary Shelly’s work that is most true to the novel. However, del Toro’s version does make some changes. One character who is quite different is the primary female character, Elizabeth, played by Mia Goth.
The single image above shows Elizabeth and The Creature looking into each other's eyes in a nearly romantic way. This is a scene that did not appear in Shelly’s work and is fully the creation of del Toro. Without diving into spoilers, the relationship between Elizabeth and the Creature, while not a major focus of the film, is important, and it gives on very powerful Beauty & the Beast vibes.
While I have issues with slime of the ways that del Toro diverged from the source material, I did find the visual elements of Elizabeth and the Creature compelling, and as such it made me wish that del Toro had made Beauty and the Beast, as his taste for gothic romance would have almost certainly made it a treat for the eyes at the very least.
