James Cameron Told Guillermo del Toro to Cut a “Beautiful” 7-Minute Scene From FRANKENSTEIN
Guillermo del Toro recently shared details one of the hardest creative calls he had to make on Frankenstein, and it came courtesy of one of his closest filmmaker friends.
While walking the red carpet at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the director revealed that James Cameron convinced him to remove a seven-minute sequence he genuinely loved.
For del Toro, feedback isn’t handled through test screenings or studio notes. Instead, he relies on a trusted inner circle of filmmakers who get early looks at his work and aren’t afraid to be brutally honest.
“What I do – because we don't test the movies – I show it to the 14, 16 most brilliant friends I know, and I'm blessed with good friendships,” del Toro told Variety.
That group includes some of the most respected directors working today. “Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Iñárritu, Jim Cameron, Rian Johnson, Steven [Spielberg],” he said. “A lot of people see the movie, they tell me what they think, and we have the agreement to be brutal.”
Cameron’s note landed hard, but del Toro didn’t hesitate. “Jim [Cameron] came in and he said, ‘Look, there's this section’ – which is not in the movie anymore – ‘This is beautiful, but you gotta take it out. And it was about seven minutes… When someone gives me a note that is in that circle, I do it. I don't argue.’”
That cut came from a film that has been deeply personal for del Toro from the start. Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as the obsessive scientist whose experiments lead to the creation of life, with Jacob Elordi portraying the Creature. The project has been in development for nearly twenty years.
Elordi has spoken about how intimate the story feels, saying, “It definitely highlights the personal over the scientific. To me, it's a biography of Guillermo's.”
While del Toro was shaping his gothic passion project, Cameron was busy expanding his own cinematic universe. His latest sci-fi epic Avatar: Fire and Ash recently hit theaters, introducing a dangerous new Na’vi faction called the Mangkwan, led by Varang, who allies herself with Colonel Miles Quaritch against Jake Sully and his family. It has since made over a billion dollars at the box office.
As for del Toro’s reimagining of Mary Shelley’s classic, fans can watch the finished version for themselves. Frankenstein is now streaming on Netflix.
