Blood brothers
Director Paul McGuigan
Starring James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Andrew Scott, Charles Dance
ETA 4 December
Total Film crushes peanuts in olde worlde paper cornets underfoot as we enter the world of Victor
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s classic gothic tome re-imagined as a buddy movie by Chronicle and American Ultra scribe, Max Landis (yep, son of
American Werewolf creator, John). It’s March 2014 and we’re at Shepperton Studios where a huge Victorian circus tent has been created for a 360 degree set – the background for dodgy doc Frankenstein (James McAvoy) and limping hunchback Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) as they first meet-cute. In this tale Igor is no stumbling body-snatcher simply doing Dr F’s bidding; rather he’s a disabled and disadvantaged bright spark who partners with Frankenstein in his bid to push medical science to the very edge. All set against the crunching, clanging advancement of the Industrial Revolution. Judging from the recent quippy trailer, Victor Frankenstein is pitched in the style of Guy Ritchie’s
Sherlock Holmes – classic characters re-tooled for modern bromance. The sewn-together body parts of an ’80s cop movie, period adap and a franchise origin story, if you will. “There are things that you’d want to see out of the original,” admits McAvoy between takes. “The archetypal mad doctor, mad scientist. And that’s perfectly there, in bucketloads.” But there’s also plenty of modernity, comedy, action and, as befits a film dealing in anatomy, bodily fluids.
“One of the most stomach-turning scenes in the film will probably be the scene where I go from being a hunchback to not being a hunchback any more,” says Radcliffe with some glee during a break. “It involves… I don’t want to say, because it’s so gross, I’ll ruin it.” Is it pus-related, TF ventures? “It is pus-related. Good guess! And James gets rid of it himself in a very visceral way – which I’m sure you will enjoy. But it definitely was one of those scenes where our producers were going, ‘Guys, can you just do one [ take] where you do a less disgusting version of it?’ And we were like, ‘No, no, no!’”
Aiming to be as scary as it’s fun, the team on Victor Frankenstein aren’t that concerned with pussyfooting around the original text. “[ Frankenstein] has always been a mad scientist with funny hair – and that’s it,” shrugs director Paul McGuigan. “He’s not really had a backstory. So we give him one – a backstory that we’ve chosen to make up. So there’s not a reverence to the book. I think sometimes people are overr-everent about it. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, but it’s as dull as dishwater, man. In a way, my catchphrase is always: ‘If you love the book, you’ll hate the movie.’ It’s that kind of twisting of it.”
McGuigan certainly knows how to give a classic a twist, having helmed episodes of BBC’s Sherlock, and he’s brought an element of it to this project in the shape of Moriarty himself, Andrew Scott, who’ll be playing Radcliffe and McAvoy’s nemesis, Turpin. That, and the bromance – which seems to reflect the real-life mutual respect between the two leads. “I’ve enjoyed all aspects of working with him, but the physical side is one that really sets him apart from a lot of people,” says Radcliffe of McAvoy. “He has thrown me around in this film… pretty much our first day was him repeatedly slamming me against a pillar, so that set the tone. I like to think that I’ve been the most willing victim that he’s ever had as an onscreen partner.” Aww…