Why do we need yet another version of Frankenstein? Well, we don’t, in most cases. On the other hand, Fox is putting a lot of talent behind and in front of the camera, so this is starting to look like a movie worth watching.
Specifically, the movie just added James McAvoy as Victor Von Frankenstein to Daniel Radcliffe’s Igor:
This was a coveted role, and the studio recently tested actors that included Boardwalk Empire‘s Jack Huston, and Toby Kebbell, whose breakout was the Guy Ritchie-directed RocknRolla. John Davis’ Davis Entertainment is producing.
But it’s the guys making it that are really attention getting. The director, Paul McGuigan, made the underrated Push, which was a fun silly action movie about psychics with lots of guns, and he’s directing from a script by Max Landis, who mixed superhero and found footage tropes so effectively with Chronicle. Landis’ take is somewhat under wraps, but what he has mentioned is that the story is told from Igor’s point of view and although it’s a period piece, there are also science fiction elements.
It’s a pretty interesting take, not least because “Igor” doesn’t show up in the book, the stage play it was turned into, or the movie that the stage play was turned into. There’s a hunchback, but his name is Fritz. So it appears that Landis is pulling together a lot of Frankenstein trivia, and the guy has a lot to sift through. It’ll be interesting to see how it pays off, which we’ll apparently find out in 2014.