The film stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein’s monster
Guillermo del Toro’s next project has been years in the making.
The Academy Award–winning director—known for his fantastical touch on horror stories, from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) to Pinocchio (2022)—will adapt Mary Shelley’s seminal 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Widely credited as the first-ever science-fiction book, Shelley chronicled the tale of Victor Frankenstein, an obsessive scientist who discovers a new way to create life. Through his experiments, Frankenstein gives rise to a grotesque but intelligent creature whose existence instills terror in all who encounter him.
Del Toro’s unique perspective on filmmaking stems from his love of Shelley’s novel. “My favorite novel in the world is Frankenstein,” he told Collider in a 2010 interview. “I’m going to misquote it horribly, but the monster says, ‘I have such love in me, more than you can imagine. But, if I cannot provoke it, I will provoke fear.’ As a child that was disenfranchised from everything, and that was in a world that was the wrong size, run by the wrong people, the wrong morale and the wrong rules, I felt completely outside of that, and I wanted some measure of control, and the measure of control I found was through fear.”
Ahead, we break down everything we know so far about del Toro’s take on Frankenstein.
Frankenstein will release on Netflix this fall.
With its Netflix release date slated for November, Frankenstein will surely be a top contender for the perfect fall spooky watch.
The cast includes some big names.
Del Toro has recruited some of the most beloved names in Hollywood to lead his adaptation of Frankenstein. Oscar Isaac is set to portray Victor Frankenstein, the mad scientist whose eerie invention goes awry. Meanwhile, Jacob Elordi will play Frankenstein’s monster, a creature whose lifeless body is reanimated through electricity. Other names associated with del Toro’s project include Mia Goth as Elizabeth Lavenza and Christoph Waltz as Harlander, as well as Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Christian Covery, and Charles Dance.
The first-look photos promise Gothic horror.
Frankenstein is del Toro’s favorite novel.
Del Toro previously talked about the effect that Shelley’s Gothic novel had on his perspective as a filmmaker.
“The monster says, ‘I have such love in me, more than you can imagine. But, if I cannot provoke it, I will provoke fear,’” he said during a 2010 interview with Collider. “The reality is that I feel that fear is a very spiritual emotion. In a world where we are so pragmatic and materialistic, fear is the only emotion that allows even a sophisticated person to believe in something beyond. We are such skeptics that we find it difficult to believe in God and angels and a spiritual afterlife, but a moment of fear makes our spirit so vulnerable that it allows us to believe in something beyond that. It’s also a boundary, and there’s nothing that defines who you are more than boundaries, whether you cross them or not, in every aspect of your life, and horror is a really great boundary.”
Netflix released the first teaser.
The official teaser trailer, which dropped in May 2025, gives fans their first glimpse into the eerie world that del Toro crafted for Frankenstein.
“What manner of creature is that? What manner of devil made him?” a voice asks as the camera pans to a tall and foreboding figure standing alone near the horizon line. “I did,” Isaac answers as a weary and fearful Frankenstein.
Watch the full teaser below. / harpersbazaar.com
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