We at Empire love us some Guillermo Del Toro. As a director, he spent the nineties being interesting and creative, but a bit scrappy, and has grown into one of cinema's most visionary directors. So, the news that he is planning a take on the story of Frankenstein stirs in us a reaction that can only be described as 'WEEEEEEEE!'
Del Toro told MTV that he's planning "the definitive take" on Mary Shelley's monster. But. But, he says he doesn't want to film a literal telling of the novel, telling the site, "The only way to do the Shelley novel is to actually do a four-hour miniseries,” he said. “But I think there permutations in which you can tell the myth in a different way.”
The director is apparently still in the very very early stages of development, working on sketches and such. He doesn't even say for sure whether he's actually been given the job of making a new Frankenstein or if he's just doing it for his own amusement.
Things are looking good for the renaissance of old school monsters. Mark Romanek's take on The Wolf Man has been delayed but looks good from early images of Benicio Del Toro. This could be spectacular. Now, if someone could make a good new take on Dracula to erase the memories of Francis Ford Coppola's effort and be a bit less camp than the Hammer version, then we'll be golden. If David Fincher or Alfonso Cuaron could make it, that'd be marvellous.
P.S. Please make The Hobbit first, Mr Del Toro.