Jessie Buckley To Headline Upcoming Frankenstein Film 'The Bride'

Since actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s massive success directing her first feature film, The Lost Daughter, Hollywood has been keeping its eyes peeled for hints of her next big project. Those first surfaced in May 2023, with an exclusive report via the website Giant Freakin Robot, which claimed her next film would be a remake of Bride of Frankenstein, set to be made for Netflix. While the reports seemed to be true, most trades were not ready to take their news from a Giant Freakin Robot, and it wasn’t until August, when Production Weekly confirmed the movie, titled The Bride, had gone into pre-production, that most mainstream sites began to report on it.

However, that was short-lived, as only a week or so later, reports the film was being shopped elsewhere by Netflix surfaced, as the studio used the strike as an excuse to clear the decks of projects heading in directions they were displeased by. By November, word was Warner Brothers was in talks to scoop it up; the success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie had given Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy the space to push for more women writer/director projects. But it wasn’t until this year that the deal was confirmed, with Gyllenhaal reuniting with Jessie Buckley, who co-starred in The Lost Daughter, taking the lead role as the Bride in the 1930s set film.

In reporting on the project, Deadline insists on calling the film “Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Untitled Frankenstein Lore” feature, contradicting all previous reports that the film is called The Bride. It is unclear if a name change was part of Warner Brothers’ demands in taking on the film or if “The Bride” was always a working title.