Universal Studios had big plans for their interconnected Dark Universe, which was meant to bring together the greatest Universal Monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolfman, among others. Although the original Dark Universe plan fell apart with the release of the first movie in the franchise,The Mummy, in a recent interview to promote his new movieBeing the Ricardos,Javier Bardemstoked the fires of hope by expressing a desire to play Frankenstein’s Monster in a remake ofBride of Frankenstein. Whether this is something that we will ever see, and Bardem himself confessed that he doesn’t believe the remake will happen, it is certainly something that would bring another talent to the role of one of the most sympathetic monsters in history.
Having been linked to the role of the creature in 2017, with word that Angelina Jolie would be joining him as The Bride, the project has since dwindled away. While still not completely dead, the unlikely project is that Bardem would be happy to be a part of it if it went ahead, as he revealed in the interview withSiriusXM. TheSkyfallactor explained:
“I’m for sure- differently from Desi Arnaz (in Being the Ricardos), in this one, I give the type: I have the looks, I have the head, that’s nice, that’s for sure. But, that comes from the… monster universe, and it went down, and I haven’t- I’ve read myself that it’s going to happen, but I haven’t heard anything about it, so I don’t know what’s the state of that. Me personally, I would love to play Frankenstein. I mean, actually, I would like to play both Doctor Frankenstein and Frankenstein the monster, because it’s a dichotomy, and the contradiction of one [and] the same being. But, I don’t know if that’s going to be the case or not. As far as I know, it’s not happening… Maybe somebody else is doing it, and some other actor, but the only one that I will recall that could do Frankenstein is Josh Brolin. He has the same size head as me… With some screws in our forehead, it could work.”
Javier Bardem May Yet Get To Play Frankenstein’s Monster In the Dark Universe
The complete failure of the Tom Cruise-ledThe Mummyderailed any plans for theDark Universeto continue with Universal, but in 2020 Blumhouse’s re-imagining ofThe Invisible Man, which in many ways took the old Universal Monster and put it in a movie that had many similarities to the Kevin Bacon movieHollow Man, saw audiences pulled into the story in a way that no one expected. With that kind of reworking of classic monsters seeming to be a popular way forward, a number of the previously abandoned projects have been resurrected, including, according to writer David Koepp,The Bride of Frankensteinmovie.
TheBride of Frankensteinis still regarded as one of the greatest horror movies of all time even almost 90 years later. While Mary Shelley wrote the original novel,Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, it was Universal Studios who brought the most iconic version of the Monster to life, with Boris Karloff taking on the pitiful role in 1931’sFrankenstein. While both that, and its sequel,Bride of Frankenstein, were huge hits with audiences, the latter is thought of as one of the most superior sequels in cinematic history.
