The five-year gap between features taken into account, you can understand why Guillermo del Toro has more than a couple of Pacific Rim follow-ups on the brain, even before the robots vs. monsters scramble arrives in theaters at the end of this week. Better yet that he’d have so many selections at the tip of his fingers, the following especially: in October, there was a fascinating quote regarding the director’s own big-screen take on the Frankenstein legend — in his words, “the most personal film I’ll ever make.” The catch? In short, he’s a busy guy.
But not busy enough to sideline the effort entirely. As revealed in an interview with The Telegraph (via ThePlaylist), del Toro has been seeking Benedict Cumberbatch — star of his upcoming haunted house spectacle, Crimson Peak — to portray the creature himself, that iconic Adam of Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s labours. Fanboys and fangirls alike will cheer at the decision — and why not? he has the brooding intensity to fill it out — though it’s not new territory for the Sherlock star: both he and Jonny Lee Miller played monster and creator in Danny Boyle‘s 2011 staging of the Mary Shelley text. (However, what’s being discussed, here, is bound to differentiate itself strongly enough so as to shake up the idea of a Cumberbatch portrayal altogether.) With the title a long way off, those who anticipate such a collaboration ought to hold off on the casting game.
There’s a developing title of greater interest, anyway: Slaughterhouse-Five, which del Toro had tried to helm with a Charlie Kaufman script in hand and, needless to say, failed at. While none of his recent comments about the title shed new light on a creative approach — that was covered here — the scribe sounds to be in on the deal, despite being “very expensive” and presenting problems thus. The fighter that he is, del Toro still promises to “work it out.”
How do you feel about Cumberbatch and del Toro trying on Frankenstein? Any hopes for a Kaufman-penned Slaughterhouse-Five?