The industry loves Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein.” Yeah, no kidding — the film earned nine Oscar nominations on Tuesday. A recent THR piece, “How Hollywood Fell For Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein,’” tackles how, despite initial hesitancy, “Frankenstein” has turned into a beloved film with some of the most vocal industry support.
Some of the film’s most outspoken supporters include Francis Ford Coppola, Jon Favreau, Jason Reitman, Bradley Cooper, Emerald Fennell, Ava DuVernay, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón, Bill Hader, Celine Song, and Margot Robbie — the latter calling it del Toro’s “magnum opus.” All have publicly praised “Frankenstein.”
We can now add David Fincher to that list. Here’s the filmmaker praising “Frankenstein” at a recent Netflix Q&A:
The movie is exquisite. But it’s not just beautiful. Because ‘just beautiful’ is a cop-out. You have a film that is an example of a hand-crafted personal expression. It is outstanding in that respect.
Audience response has helped fuel the Oscar momentum. Commercially, “Frankenstein” has been a notable success for Netflix, ranking among the platform’s top five most-viewed films in its first five weeks and performing well in theaters, with nearly 1,000 global screenings selling out. In fact, Netflix will be re-releasing the film in some theaters for a limited one-week run near the end of the month.
At that same Q&A, del Toro and Fincher — both bought and sold by Netflix via lucrative deals — tried to defend the idea of “cinema” and what it means to watch a film on streaming instead of in theaters:
Guillermo del Toro: “People are trying to define Cinema right now. Is it the size of the screen, or the size of the ideas?”
David Fincher: “It’s not the length of the thing, it’s not the width of it…”
Guillermo del Toro: “It defines itself. When you have 120 people — cast and crew —giving you their very best, I think the audience feels it — they say this is a movie.
Fincher has been all-in with Netflix for over ten years, diving headfirst into streaming by creating shows such as “House of Cards,” “Mindhunter,” and “Love, Death + Robots” — not to mention three films, “Mank,” “The Killer,” and the upcoming “The Adventures of Cliff Booth.”
In fact, Fincher has gone so far as to claim “Netflix is the Future of Cinema.”
Meanwhile, del Toro has acknowledged the value of both streaming and theaters. He’s said that “Frankenstein” was designed to “work in both sizes” — meaning it should feel intimate at home and epic in a cinema — while also noting that it’s “too early to speculate” on what these shifts will ultimately mean for cinematic culture.
In other words, you won’t hear del Toro or Fincher criticizing Netflix anytime soon.