{"id":990953,"date":"2025-12-09T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=990953"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:32:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:32:00","slug":"guillermo-del-toro-on-frankenstein-and-the-netflix-warner-bros-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=990953","title":{"rendered":"Guillermo del Toro on Frankenstein and the Netflix & Warner Bros deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Frankenstein (2025)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Gallery \/ 14 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em> is a violent, romantic blockbuster made for, and best seen in, cinemas. It\u2019s also a Netflix film that, in its first three days on the streaming service, was watched for 1.26 billion minutes in America. Del Toro, the Oscar-winning auteur behind Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em>, The Shape of Water<\/em>, and Nightmare Alley<\/em>, is aware of both truths: Netflix, who funded the film, gave it a theatrical release, but most people are discovering it in their living room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interaction with the audience has been very intense and beautiful,\u201d says the 61-year-old Mexican filmmaker. \u201cThe highest numbers I\u2019ve gotten with an audience are probably Pacific Rim<\/em>, this one, Shape<\/em>, and Pan\u2019s<\/em>, in that order. With this one, what\u2019s gratifying is that particularly younger audiences are looking at it three, four, five times in the theatre or at home. It\u2019s generating fan art to an extraordinary volume.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del Toro is in London, in early December, talking to me in between Q&A screenings. It\u2019s a few days after it was announced that Netflix won the bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. (We touch on that later.) Del Toro has cited watching James Whale\u2019s 1931 version of Frankenstein <\/em>at the age of seven as what inspired him to become a filmmaker. Sean Baker has also repeatedly made the same claim, except he was six at the time. Will a seven-year-old stumble upon del Toro\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em> on Netflix, and become the next del Toro or Baker?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a good point,\u201d says del Toro. \u201cThe best communal experience is in a theatre. But I was born in \u201964. A large number of movies that I discovered were on TV. Universal Monsters, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Mexican cinema of the golden era \u2013 I watched them on TV. But if you try to see Vertigo<\/em>, 2001<\/em>, or Lawrence of Arabia<\/em> on your TV \u2013 don\u2019t. When I finally saw Vertigo<\/em> in a theatre, I realised I had never experienced it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costing around $120 million, Frankenstein<\/em> is big, bombastic, and full of practical effects. It\u2019s a distinctly del Toro vision: the camera has the hovering curiosity of Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em>; the production design boasts the extravagance of Nightmare Alley <\/em>but on an even larger scale. After all, Frankenstein <\/em>has always been in his films, whether it\u2019s the \u201cmad scientist\u201d surgeon in Cronos<\/em>, or an actual quip about Frankenstein<\/em> in Mimic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Del Toro\u2019s take on Mary Shelley\u2019s 1818 novel is to shift the setting to Victorian London and split the story into two sections. The first half is from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), a surgeon who reanimates dead body parts, creates The Creature (Jacob Elordi), and in turn regrets his invention. The film\u2019s final hour then follows The Creature as he grows hair, discovers emotions, and confronts an inability to die. Del Toro and Baker fell in love with Boris Karloff as The Monster; audiences, too, might understand why The Creature is played by the heartthrob from Saltburn<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Del Toro initially planned to make Frankenstein<\/em> after Hellboy II: The Golden Army<\/em>. In a 2011 New Yorker<\/em> profile, the director is working on a proof-of-concept video for Universal. \u201cThe version I developed with Universal was a different monster,\u201d says del Toro. \u201cIt was asymmetric and closer to the depiction in the illustrated book.\u201d When del Toro pitched the project to Netflix, he only needed to present a handful of images. \u201cPinocchio<\/em> and Frankenstein<\/em> were greenlit incredibly early. Ted Sarandos said, \u2018Give me your bucket list.\u2019 I said, \u2018Pinocchio<\/em> and Frankenstein<\/em>.\u2019 He said yes to both.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Frankenstein (2025)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As demonstrated in Frankenstein: The Anatomy Lesson<\/em>, the accompanying making-of doc on Netflix, Frankenstein<\/em> uses real sets, practical effects, and costumes so detailed that you want to pause the screen. Meanwhile, the camera patiently floats through elaborate rooms and locations, savouring the intricate production design. Is he trying to shoot it like a documentary?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the camera never stops,\u201d says del Toro. \u201cIt\u2019s different in each episode. We\u2019re using a 24mm lens that gives you a wide image but doesn\u2019t distort. The sections in the Frozen North have a limited colour palette of blue, white, and gold; the camera is very elegiac, landscape, oriented towards feeling epic. The childhood section is shot to be painterly; the colour palette becomes black, white, and red. In Victor\u2019s youth, the point of view is very active. The camera tracks Victor; it\u2019s zooming, craning in, craning out. In Victor\u2019s story, all the colours come to play, except red. And then comes The Creature\u2019s story, and it becomes a fairytale. The colour palette changes to straw, moss, wood. It becomes naturalistic. The camera becomes contemplative. But the entire time, there\u2019s not a single static shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I believe the camera should be curious, like another character trying to take a look at things. I haven\u2019t put a camera on a tripod since, probably, 2001<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s quite a contrast from the pacing of, for example, Mimic<\/em>, or del Toro\u2019s other 90s movies. Is it del Toro evolving as a filmmaker, or what serves the story? \u201cThe style doesn\u2019t exist in and of itself. You\u2019re going to shoot Pacific Rim<\/em> differently to The Devil\u2019s Backbone<\/em>. One thing I\u2019ve tried to do from The Devil\u2019s Backbone<\/em> on is to never shoot with a static camera. I believe the camera should be curious, like another character trying to take a look at things. I haven\u2019t put a camera on a tripod since, probably, 2001.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del Toro\u2019s next film is a stop-motion adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s novel The Buried Giant<\/em>. After that will be Fury<\/em>, a gritty thriller with Oscar Isaac that\u2019s based on the 2016 Spanish film The Fury of a Patient Man<\/em>. I tell del Toro that I\u2019ve seen The Fury of a Patient Man<\/em>, and can\u2019t imagine it being shot like a del Toro film.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fury of a Patient Man<\/em> has two twists that are very unexpected, and I like that, and it has a really good first and second act. But the third act is going to be completely reinvented. My intention is very different from the Spanish movie. My intention is to have two characters \u2013 one that\u2019s looking at the past, and one that\u2019s looking at the future \u2013 having a dialogue. The way I\u2019m going to shoot it is very different from my normal style. I want to do a lot of hand-held. No cranes. The last four or five films have been shot almost entirely on cranes and Steadicam. I want to do a more jagged style.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Frankenstein<\/span><\/span>
Frankenstein (2025)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The camera will always be moving? \u201cIt could be. I\u2019m writing the screenplay with Scott Frank, and until we finish it, I won\u2019t decide the formal aspects.\u201d Is Isaac playing the \u201cpatient man\u201d, or the criminal the \u201cpatient man\u201d is getting revenge on? \u201cOscar said, \u2018When you finish the screenplay, can I choose which character I play? I said, \u2018100 per cent. I\u2019ll write the screenplay, and you choose it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Our career-spanning conversation touches on his favourite unproduced screenplay that he\u2019s written (it\u2019s either Beauty and the Beast<\/em> or Left Hand of Darkness<\/em>), his thoughts on mortality (\u201cit\u2019s vital to know you\u2019re going to die \u2013 death gives life some meaning\u201d), and if he\u2019d ever finance a passion project like Coppola did with Megapolis <\/em>(he doesn\u2019t have that kind of money, but he funded the anatomical waxes in Frankenstein<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Del Toro, an avowed supporter of cinemas, has made two films in a row with Netflix. I ask him about Netflix winning the bid to acquire Warner Bros, a deal that some have suggested will kill the theatrical model. \u201cIt\u2019s so much above my paygrade,\u201d says del Toro, laughing. \u201cI was not consulted, nor informed. It seems like an era of consolidation between companies.\u201d He adds, \u201cHow they change entertainment is one thing. How they change the culture is another. I still believe it\u2019s important to have the option of experiencing movies theatrically. As to the rest? I think it\u2019s too early to even speculate. The deal will be real in 12 to 18 months, not right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days ago, it was also announced that del Toro is receiving a BFI Fellowship<\/a>, and that he will have a BFI season in May. The director assures me that he\u2019s already working on locating 35mm prints to screen at BFI Southbank \u2013 it\u2019s a topic I bring up at least five times during the interview. \u201cI\u2019m with you [on 35mm],\u201d he says. That\u2019s why revival cinemas are having a boon, and regular cinemas are experiencing a bit of a plateau. In France, every time you go to a cinema, it\u2019s much cheaper to go to a repertory cinema. You see lines around the block to see Singing in the Rain <\/em>or The Maltese Falcon<\/em>, and it\u2019s mostly young people. It\u2019s really heartening and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frankenstein is streaming globally on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69256\/1\/guillermo-del-toro-frankenstein-bucket-list-film-interview-netflix-jacob-elordi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frankenstein (2025) Gallery \/ 14 images Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Frankenstein is a violent, romantic blockbuster made for, and best seen in, cinemas. It\u2019s also a Netflix film that, in its first three days on the streaming service, was watched for 1.26 billion minutes in America. Del Toro, the Oscar-winning auteur behind Pan\u2019s Labyrinth, The Shape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":990954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-990953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=990953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/990954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=990953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=990953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=990953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}