Annette Bening, currently generating Oscar buzz for her Netflix biopic “Nyad,” is the latest to join Maggie Gyllenhaal’s untitled Frankenstein movie.
The film is already slated to star Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, Penelope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard. Sounds like it’s shaping up to be quite the monster mash.
The Frankenstein lore project was previously set up at Netflix, where Gyllenhaal made her feature directorial debut “The Lost Daughter” (based on Elena Ferrante’s novel). The same project was then taken to Warner Bros., where Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group cochairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy jumped on. The project is “Gyllenhaal’s take on the lore of Frankenstein’s pursuit of love,” according to a release.
The movie is said to follow “a lonely Frankenstein” as he travels to 1930s Chicago to “seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police and a wild and radical social movement.”
The untitled project was will be produced by Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Gyllenhaal, Talia Kleinhendler and Osnant Handelsman-Keren. Executive producers are Courtney Kivowitz and Carla Raij.
Hilariously, John Mulaney mentioned the project when he read an email from his agent during his opening monologue at the Governors Awards on Tuesday. They asked for him to audition for an anonymous cop role in the project. (He didn’t get the part.)
Gyllenhaal’s project joins a long list of Frankenstein-adjacet projects, from Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar hopeful “Poor Things” to Diablo Cody’s upcoming “Lisa Frankenstein” with director Zelda Williams to Guillermo del Toro’s take on the classic material, coming soon to Netflix and starring Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth and Felix Kammerer.
Everything is coming up Frankenstein!
