Mia Goth and Jacob Elordi in “Frankenstein.”
Netflix
Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic novel, is new on Netflix. What are the chances of del Toro directing a sequel to the film?
Set largely in the mid-1850s, Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who suffered a deep personal loss in his youth. Obssessed with bringing the dead back to life, Victor eventually stitches different body parts from dead wartime soldiers to reanimate a being simply known as the Creature (Jacob Elordi). But when Victor abandons his creation, the Creature hunts down the scientist with a demand to create a mate for him.
Rated R, Frankenstein also stars Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen and Charles Dance.
After making its award season-qualifying run in theaters in New York and Los Angeles from Oct. 17-23, Frankenstein expanded to theaters nationwide on Oct. 24 and began streaming on Netflix on Nov. 7.
While Netflix doesn’t disclose the numbers its films bring in at the theatrical box office, Frankenstein is already a monster hit on the streaming service, attracting 29.1 million views in its first three days on the streaming platform, which equates to 73.6 million hours viewed. The streaming numbers were also enough for Frankenstein to debut at No. 1 on Netflix’s Global Top 10 Movies chart and earn the top spot on Netflix’s charts in 72 countries worldwide.
The film has also won heaps of praise from critics, with its Rotten Tomatoes review score currently sitting at 86% “fresh” based on 307 reviews. In addition, Frankenstein has earned a 95% “fresh” Popcornmeter score based on 1,000-plus viewer ratings.
With any potential awards season success still waiting in the wings, Frankenstein already appears to be a big success for Netflix, which naturally begs the question of whether del Toro’s film will get a sequel.
Guillermo del Toro and Jacob Elordi on the set of “Frankenstein.”
Netflix/Ken Woroner
Guillermo Del Toro At One Point Considered Two ‘Frankenstein’ Films
Other filmmakers have made sequels to their versions of Frankenstein over the decades, perhaps most notably director James Whale.
In 1935, Whale directed Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster opposite Elsa Lanchester as his potential mate in the movie classic The Bride of Frankenstein. The story for the film, of course, was derived from the monster’s demand for a mate in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel.
From all indications by Guillermo del Toro, however, since the director has realized his lifelong goal of making Frankenstein for the big screen, he is moving on from telling more tales about Shelley’s creation.
During an interview with Variety in August, del Toro clarified reports that he once thought of making Frankenstein as a miniseries and revealed what he originally had planned for the story.
“I thought about it as two movies. I originally wanted to make the same movie from two points of view and sort of contradict what you had seen in the first movie with the second one,” del Toro told Variety. “But I decided it was much better to have a movie where there’s a hinge moment shortly after the creation, where the perspective shifts and you follow the creature in his travels after following Victor for the first part.”
As such, Frankenstein — which runs 2 hours, 30 minutes — allows the director enough time to first tell the story from Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s point of view, then from the Creature’s perspective.
After Frankenstein, del Toro appears to be done with making films about movie monsters.
“This movie closes the cycle,” del Toro told Empire Magazine in September. “If you look at the lineage, from Cronos to The Devil’s Backbone, to Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak to this, this is an evolution of a certain type of aesthetic, and a certain type of rhythm, and a certain type of empathy.” It’s an evolution that has maybe reached its apotheosis. “I feel like I need a change.”
The director did note for Empire, however, that he could always change his mind about making another monster movie.
“You never know. The day after tomorrow, I may want to do Jekyll & Hyde, or whatever,” del Toro told Empire. “But right now, my desire is to try and do something very different.”
Frankenstein is streaming exclusively on Netflix.
