Behind-the-scenes images give a fresh look at Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!
A couple of years ago, word leaked out that Maggie Gyllenhaal was set to write and direct a film called The Bride!, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein (watch it HERE). Once thought to be set up at the Netflix streaming service, this one is actually happening at Warner Bros., and the studio has set the film for a theatrical release on March 6, 2026 (after pushing it back from this October). We’re still a few months out from the new release date, but Entertainment Weekly has unveiled a few behind-the-scenes images that give a fresh look at the film. You can check them out at the bottom of this article.
Cast and Synopsis
Maggie Gyllenhaal has assembled a strong cast for the film that includes Peter Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, and her brother Jake Gyllenhaal, with Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster. The Bride! has the following synopsis: 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. Bening plays Dr. Euphronius. Sarsgaard has denied the rumors that the movie is a musical, but also admitted that there are some dance routines.
This isn’t a Universal project, but it wouldn’t be the first Bride of Frankenstein remake to be made by a different company. In 1985, Columbia Pictures brought us another movie simply called The Bride, which starred Sting as Baron Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as Eva (the bride) and Clancy Brown as Viktor (the monster). A few years ago, it was announced that Scarlett Johansson was going to star in a similar project called Bride for A24 and Apple, but that still hasn’t made it into production.
Gyllenhaal’s film has been rated R for strong/bloody violent content, sexual content/nudity and language.
Inspired by a tattoo
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Gyllenhaal revealed that she was inspired to watch The Bride of Frankenstein for the first time after seeing a tattoo of the character on someone’s forearm. After she watched the movie, she was left wanting to know more about the Bride… so she wrote the screenplay for this movie to get answers. She told EW, “I watched the movie, and I realized she doesn’t speak. She’s only in it for five minutes at most. She’s still formidable, but I thought there’s a problem with this concept. It’s called the Bride of Frankenstein, but it’s really Frankenstein. So, who is she? … What about her? You can’t just bring someone back from the dead and expect everything’s gonna go okay.“
She originally thought of setting the story “in post-Civil War time, like the 1870s, because I was thinking about people coming back from the dead for all sorts of reasons. There was a big movement at the time, because so many people were killed in the Civil War, and so many women were losing children, of spiritualists, who were almost all women, who would speak to the dead. And so I thought that’d be an interesting time to set it. Then I realized at a certain point, as I was writing, that I wanted Frankenstein, who was so lonely, who had no human connection, for his primary relationship before he meets the Bride, to be with a movie star. Also, in the movies, he’s free to take his scarf down to show his face, which otherwise really alienates and scares people. So then I thought, Okay, well, now it can’t be the 1870s, how about the ’30s?” For more details on her approach to the film, click over to Entertainment Weekly.
Are you looking forward to seeing Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on this classic concept? Take a look at the images below, then share your thoughts on The Bride! by leaving a comment.
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