The Bride of Frankenstein won't be springing to life as soon as we expected.
The Twilight Saga director Bill Condon is attached to direct a feminist spin on the classic Universal horror, with Javier Bardem and Angelina Jolie linked to playing the monster and his bride respectively.
However, Universal Pictures is pulling the plug on the mad doctor's experiments at least for now in order for filmmaker Bill Condon and writer David Koepp (Jurassic Park) to rework the screenplay.
(Stars of Universal's Dark Universe)
A statement released by Universal reads: "After thoughtful consideration, Universal Pictures and director Bill Condon have decided to postpone Bride of Frankenstein.
"None of us want to move too quickly to meet a release date when we know this special movie needs more time to come together. Bill is a director whose enormous talent has been proven time and again, and we all look forward to continuing to work on this film together."
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The decision is not exactly unexpected, since Bill Condon had just distanced his version of Bride of Frankenstein from Universal's planned Dark Universe of interconnected horror projects.
"I will tell you this – what I'm doing is 100% making a really good monster movie. It has nothing to do with anything else. Nothing. Zero," the director insisted.
Condon's adaptation would have turned director James Whale's classic 1935 original on its ear by making the Bride the focus, rather than having her only appear at the end of the movie.
"This is Eve before Adam, the bride comes first," writer David Koepp recently explained. "So I keep thinking [it's], in a way, at least a tribute to what [the director James] Whale might have done if he'd made a third Frankenstein movie and he'd done it in the 21st century."
Production had been scheduled to start next year to meet a February 14, 2019 release date. Bride of Frankenstein has now been moved off Universal's film slate entirely.
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Justin is a freelance entertainment journalist and writer. He first joined Digital Spy as a freelance entertainment reporter in 2010 and also worked as a sub-editor for the brand, serving as Night News Editor from 2016 to 2024. Over more than a decade, Justin has covered numerous major entertainment events from the US and has interviewed a wide-ranging group of public figures, from comedian Steve Coogan to icons from the Star Trek universe, cast members from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reality stars from numerous Real Housewives cities and the Below Deck franchise. Justin has also been on the ground to cover major pop culture events like the Star Wars Celebration and the D23 Expo. He's written for titles across the Hearst network, plus the likes of CBR and Us Weekly.
