Andrew Garfield Dropped Out of FRANKENSTEIN Leaving Guillermo del Toro Just Nine Weeks to Reinvent the Monster with Jacob Elordi

Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited reimagining of Frankenstein has had a chaotic yet inspired road to completion. Originally, Andrew Garfield was set to play the iconic monster, and del Toro, along with his trusted makeup artist Mike Hill, had spent a massive nine months fine-tuning the creature’s look based around Garfield.

But then the curveball came when Garfield dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, leaving just nine weeks before filming to completely recast and redesign one of horror’s most legendary figures.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Del Toro told Vanity Fair:

“Andrew Garfield stepping out and Jacob coming in. I mean, it was like Jacob is the most perfect actor for the creature, and we have a supernaturally good connection.

“It’s like, very few words. Very few things I have to say, and he does it… We recast, and we had nine weeks [to get the look down]. You can’t be under more pressure than that.”

Enter Jacob Elordi, who not only stepped into the role with confidence but impressed Hill with his unique physicality and quiet intensity.

“What attracted me to him was his gangliness and his wrists. It was this looseness. Then he has these real somber moments where he watches you really deftly, and his eyelids are low, with the long lashes like Karloff.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know who else you could get with a physicality like this.’ His demeanor is innocent, but it’s encompassed in a six-foot-five frame. He could really do a lot of damage if this man really wanted to be a bad guy.”

Despite the disappointment, Garfield has no hard feelings. In a previous interview, he said:

“Meeting Jacob felt really serendipitous so that I could really see and hear that, ‘No, maybe he needed that experience more than me.’ That was cool, to feel that he had a really spectacular time on that job.”

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is already creating buzz ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it will screen in competition and potentially earn him another Golden Lion following his win with The Shape of Water. The film will have a limited theatrical run before it hits Netflix in November.

So while it may have started with a major setback, Frankenstein seems poised to become another haunting, visionary chapter in del Toro’s filmography.