Jessie Buckley To Headline Upcoming Frankenstein Film 'The Bride'
Jessie Buckley as Marian Halcombe and Dougray Scott as Sir Percival in 'The Woman in White'
BBC Pictures
Since actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s massive success directing her first feature film, The Lost Daughter, Hollywood has been keeping its eyes peeled for hints of her next big project. Those first surfaced in May 2023, with an exclusive report via the website Giant Freakin Robot, which claimed her next film would be a remake of Bride of Frankenstein, set to be made for Netflix. While the reports seemed to be true, most trades were not ready to take their news from a Giant Freakin Robot, and it wasn’t until August, when Production Weekly confirmed the movie, titled The Bride, had gone into pre-production, that most mainstream sites began to report on it.
However, that was short-lived, as only a week or so later, reports the film was being shopped elsewhere by Netflix surfaced, as the studio used the strike as an excuse to clear the decks of projects heading in directions they were displeased by. By November, word was Warner Brothers was in talks to scoop it up; the success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie had given Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy the space to push for more women writer/director projects. But it wasn’t until this year that the deal was confirmed, with Gyllenhaal reuniting with Jessie Buckley, who co-starred in The Lost Daughter, taking the lead role as the Bride in the 1930s set film.
In reporting on the project, Deadline insists on calling the film “Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Untitled Frankenstein Lore” feature, contradicting all previous reports that the film is called The Bride. It is unclear if a name change was part of Warner Brothers’ demands in taking on the film or if “The Bride” was always a working title.
Here's the film's logline:
A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman, and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police, and a wild and radical social movement.
Buckley will be joined by a murderer's row of talent, with Annette Bening (Death on the Nile) signing on most recently. Prior to Bening joining the cast, the Gyllenhaal project had picked up Christian Bale (The Pale Blue Eye), Penelope Cruz (On the Fringe), and Peter Sarsgaard (Dopesick). The film is being produced by Gyllenhaal, her two producers from The Lost Daughter, Talia Kleinhendler and Osnant Handelsman-Keren, plus Emma Tillinger Koskoff. Courtney Kivowitz, who executive produced The Lost Daughter, will EP the project along with Carla Raij.
Filming for The Bride (or whatever the film will eventually be called) is expected to begin before the end of March 2024, with a release date in time for awards season.
