Frankenstein is So Hot Right Now

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About a month ago we reported on the two movies currently in production that are about the author Mary Shelley - the director of Wadjda is making one with Elle Fanning, and then there's another one starring Sophie "Sansa Stark" Turner that's being made by a woman named Coky Giedroyc.

Funnily enough Giedroyc has directed a couple of episodes of Showtime's Penny Dreadful, which features, that's correct, its own Victor Frankenstein (Mmm Harry Treadaway) story mashed up therein with other tales of Gothic woe. (As an aside, I love that both of these Mary Shelley films are being helmed by women, don't you?)

There's also that Frankenstein movie starring James McAvoy as the Mad Doctor and Daniel Radcliffe as his assistant Igor, which is supposed to be out next October, and then of course every other week it seems that  Guillermo del Toro talks about how desperately he wants to make his take on the material. Oh and a couple of years ago Danny Boyle did that stage version in London with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, and then of course...

... there was that. That was a thing. Even though we might be trying to forget, that was a thing. Anyway, you get the gist. Frank is having a moment. Which brings us to today's news...

... that Candyman (and Paperhouse!) director Bernard Rose is making his own version, which will be from the point of view of the, um... monster - I hesitate on the word "monster" since he will be played by pretty Aussie Xavier Samuel. Here's what Deadline says:

"Frankenstein is set in present day Los Angeles and told from the perspective of Adam/The Monster (Samuel), who is created by a husband and wife team of eccentric scientists only to be met with nothing but aggression and violence from the world around him. Danny Huston and Carrie-Anne Moss will play Victor and Elizabeth Frankenstein in a cast that also includes Rose’s Candyman star Tony Todd. Rose adapted the script himself, updating Shelley’s classic tome"

I love Paperhouse (and Candyman for that matter, although that's a slightly more qualified love) so much that I will follow Bernard Rose to the ends of the Earth and back, so if he wants to tell us his own Frankenstein tale, so be it. I do love the spin that this couple created something as pretty as Xavier Samuel though - I hope he gives the story a kinky sex twist, which would be a novel way to go.

One more thing: this reminds me that there's a great story left to be told attached to the Frankenstein story - that of Elsa Lanchester, the actress who played the Bride of Frankenstein and led a helluva life besides that, which she documented in her phenomenal autobiography. Instead of another Mary Shelley movie why not Elsa? You couldn't get a richer character up on the screen than her.