{"id":637684,"date":"2025-12-17T07:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/637684\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T07:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:59:16","slug":"how-hollywood-fell-for-guillermo-del-toros-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/637684\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hollywood Fell For Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs the clock crossed midnight on Labor Day, the tide at this year\u2019s Telluride Film Festival started to turn against Frankenstein<\/a>. After Guillermo del Toro<\/a>\u2019s lavish adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel had launched in Venice days earlier to strong if not effusive reviews, star Oscar Isaac<\/a> hopped on a plane to introduce the film\u2019s secret, ultimately unfortunate North American debut at a late night screening in the Colorado Rockies. I\u2019ve been to screenings in Telluride like this before, where you can hear the restlessness in the room, feel the sense that it\u2019s not playing as the filmmakers surely hope. My colleague Scott Feinberg wrote that the U.S. premiere \u201cengendered a more muted response,\u201d questioning its viability<\/a> as an awards contender. Most coming out of that screening felt the same way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThree months later, Frankenstein has reemerged as a heavyweight, consistently racking up nominations totals in the same league as frontrunners One Battle After Another, Sinners and Hamnet. (It\u2019s up for best picture, directing and acting at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards.) A best picture nomination suddenly seems assured, and Jacob Elordi<\/a> is a strong supporting actor contender. While Kathryn Bigelow<\/a>\u2019s A House of Dynamite played better in Venice, and Noah Baumbach<\/a>\u2019s Jay Kelly surged in Telluride, there\u2019s no denying that del Toro\u2019s film has secured the top spot among Netflix\u2019s typically busy slate.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe robust response from audiences continues to fuel the momentum. Immediately after Telluride, Frankenstein was the runner-up for the Toronto International Film Festival\u2019s crucial People\u2019s Choice Award; it now has a 94 percent verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, among the best of any player in the field. Del Toro has been reposting fan art and testimonials of folks who\u2019ve seen the movie over and over. \u201cBecause I\u2019m Mexican, I have what I call the immigration test. When I go through immigration, if they say, \u2018What are you working on?\u2019 I say, \u2018Oh, the movie\u2019s not going to land,\u2019\u201d del Toro tells me. \u201cBut if they say, \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t wait to see Frankenstein\u2019 \u2014 which is what started to happen \u2014 I go, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s happening!\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGuillermo del Toro and Oscar Isaac on the set of Frankenstein.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKen Woroner\/Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film ranks within the Netflix platform\u2019s top five most viewed films of the year (within their first five weeks of release) and has been a quiet theatrical success. That latter point is key, since Netflix\u2019s contenders rarely drum up much box office noise in their qualifying runs \u2014 a point that\u2019s been magnified in the conversation around Warner Bros.\u2019 potential sale to the company (which is pending regulatory approval and the fending off of Paramount\u2019s hostile-takeover bid). Indeed, while Netflix does not release box office data \u2014 hence the \u201cquiet\u201d descriptor \u2014 Frankenstein has sold out just under 1,000 theaters globally, per sources familiar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo months out from its October release, it continues to play in theaters in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Philadelphia and more cities around the country. \u201cWhat is insane for me is the way the audience has reacted. I\u2019ve never in 30 years had this reaction. It\u2019s a massive tidal wave of affection,\u201d del Toro says. \u201cI\u2019ve been getting public and private communications from filmmakers I absolutely adore and worship, that talk about the movie with admiration or with great pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn conversations with voters and peers, speaking anecdotally, few filmmakers are brought up as often as del Toro. They\u2019ve felt his support for their own careers. His chants of \u201cfuck AI\u201d at major industry screenings elicit regular cheers, and have become a refrain for like-minded filmmakers such as Rian Johnson<\/a>. And it\u2019s widely known that Frankenstein is the film that del Toro has long been working toward.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSince I\u2019ve known you \u2014 and that has been awhile \u2014 you\u2019ve always talked about, at some point, doing a Frankenstein,\u201d del Toro\u2019s longtime buddy Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n told him at a recent industry screening. \u201cYour awareness of Frankenstein and cinema go hand in hand.\u201d Meanwhile, Margot Robbie<\/a> said at a separate event, \u201cI feel like, Guillermo, this is your magnum opus \u2014 this is the movie you were born to make.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCelebrity moderators of post-screening panels for guilds and Academy members are now a staple of any all-out Oscar campaign, but this season, there\u2019s no equivalent for who\u2019s come out for del Toro. Among them, in addition to Robbie and Cuar\u00f3n: Bill Hader<\/a>, Jon Favreau<\/a>, Jason Reitman<\/a>, Ava DuVernay<\/a>, Bradley Cooper, Celine Song<\/a>, Emerald Fennell<\/a> and Hideo Kojima<\/a>. Above, you can watch Martin Scorsese<\/a> emceeing a larger discussion for the film. \u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable work, and it stays with you,\u201d he said to the audience. \u201cI dreamed of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDel Toro has already won an Oscar for a Netflix film, with his dark stop-motion take on Pinocchio from 2022 taking home the best animated feature trophy. He\u2019s also a recent best picture and best director winner for 2017\u2019s The Shape of Water. But the Academy\u2019s growing affection for the Guadalajara native arguably became most obvious a few years back, when his divisive and less-seen noir remake Nightmare Alley still eked out a best picture nod.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJust how far del Toro can run with Frankenstein remains to be seen \u2014 the film remains on the bubble for both writing and directing nominations \u2014 but his genuine enthusiasm for simply promoting and speaking about it continues to work wonders for the campaign. Even if it\u2019s simply del Toro\u2019s way of coping with having completed his life\u2019s work. \u201cIn the middle of the shoot, and then in releasing the movie, I realized that I was entering the most massive postpartum depression,\u201d del Toro admits. \u201cIt feels overwhelming, and it leaves you without a horizon.\u201d Fortunately, this creature isn\u2019t just alive, but growing by the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the clock crossed midnight on Labor Day, the tide at this year\u2019s Telluride Film Festival started to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[196567,143827,123527,196568,191278,77,38478,59868,28317,86748,191220,196569,64506,19822,44103,115619,74266,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-637684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alfonso-cuaron","9":"tag-ava-duvernay","10":"tag-bill-hader","11":"tag-celine-song","12":"tag-emerald-fennell","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-frankenstein","15":"tag-guillermo-del-toro","16":"tag-hideo-kojima","17":"tag-jacob-elordi","18":"tag-jason-reitman","19":"tag-jon-favreau","20":"tag-kathryn-bigelow","21":"tag-margot-robbie","22":"tag-martin-scorsese","23":"tag-noah-baumbach","24":"tag-oscar-isaac","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115733855152391047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}