May 22, 2017 is a day that will live in infamy, for it’s the day that Universal released its Dark Universe composite photo of Tom Cruise (The Mummy), Russell Crowe (Dr Jekyll), Johnny Depp (Invisible Man), Javier Bardem (Frankenstein’s Monster) and poor Sofia Boutella because they needed a woman.
Universal were hoping to launch a Universal Monsters franchise and it all rested on the success of a new Mummy film starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella. And well…that was the end of that.
That is until they changed strategy and decided to go in a different direction, less dependent on famous men over 50 and one that used more independently-minded directors and actors. This is how we got Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss. And it won’t be too long before we see Derek Cianfrance and Ryan Gosling’s Wolfman, and also Chris McKay’s Renfield starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage.
Bardem was asked about Frankenstein by SiriusXM and he said that he’s still very interested in the characters of both the scientist and the monster.
While promoting Being the Ricardos, Bardem said; “different from Desi Arnez, this one I have the type. I have the looks, the head. That comes from the Monster Universe and it went down (didn’t happen) and I’ve read that it’s going to happen (in the media) but I haven’t heard anything about it. So I don’t know what’s the state of that.”
“Me, personally, I would love to play Frankenstein. Actually I would like to play both – Dr Frankenstein and Frankenstein the monster, because it’s the dichotomy of the same being. But I don’t know if that’s going to be the case or not. As far as I know, it’s not happening, maybe someone else is doing it, some other actor.”
Bardem then discussed who would have a head large enough to play Frankenstein’s monster; “But the only one I can recall that can do Frankenstein is Josh Brolin. He has the same size head, the same head-size as me. I don’t know who else can do that. Some screws in the head, it could work.”
“When we were doing No Country for Old Men, there was a moment when they looked at us. There was Tommy Lee Jones, Josh and I and we never shared the screen together and Josh said “no wonder we can’t share the screen, these are the three biggest heads in cinema history, you can’t put those three heads together in one frame!” So that’s why the Coens didn’t put us together. [laughs]”
For more creatures dug up from graves, found on mysterious islands or in the watery depths, check out our guide to the best monster movies.