Last week, we reported that director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) was in talks to helm 20th Century's Fox new adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Today, Variety confirms that Levy has gotten the gig and beaten out talented directors like Paul Greengrass and David Yates. Levy's film will work from a script by Max Landis (Chronicle) and will compete with the six other Frankenstein films currently in the works at other studios. I hope that Levy's adaptation is so full of slapstick and bad jokes that it inadvertently becomes a backdoor Frankenberry movie.Hit the jump for a recap of the other Frankenstein flicks in development.Here's a brief rundown of the other Frankenstein movies in various stages of development. Here's hoping that at least one or two make it out before Levy's and effectively kill this project.
- David Auburnâs (Proof) adaptation of Peter Ackroydâs novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein.
- Summitâs adaptation of Kenneth Oppelâs novel This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein.
- Sony's contemporary version of the story.
- Wake the Dead starring Haley Joel Osment.
- Guillermo del Toro's long-in-development adaptation starring Doug Jones as the monster (this is the one I want the most and the one that has the least chance of making it considering that Del Toro's next film, Pacific Rim, doesn't even come out until 2013)
- Stuart Beattie's adaptation of the comic book I, Frankenstein.