Frankenweenie
Directed by: Tim Burton
Written by: John August
Starring: Charlie Tahan, Frank Welker, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Atticus Shaffer
Walt Disney Pictures
Rated PG | 87 Minutes
Release Date: October 5, 2012

“I don’t want to be buried in a Pet Sematary, I don’t want to live my life again.” – The Ramones

From director Tim Burton (Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands) comes Frankenweenie, an eerie, albeit heartwarming tale about a boy and his dog.

Based off Burton’s own 1984 live-action short film (which starred Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall), Frankenweenie is a gothic, black-and-white love letter to Universal Studio’s classic horror pictures, including James Whale’s 1931 film, Frankenstein.

After unexpectedly losing his beloved dog Sparky, young Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) harnesses the blasphemous power of science to bring his best friend back to life. A few bolts of lightning later, Sparky’s his old self again – with a few modifications, of course. Sparky’s a patchwork of skin and stitches now, complete with those iconic Boris Karloff bolts in his neck.

When it was announced that Universal was planning to reboot The Mummy again, the consensus was that they shouldn’t do it. It being too soon was one of the main reasons why the studio should hold off on rebooting the classic monster. But Universal has been on the retooling the stars of their creature features for a while. Sure The Wolfman didn’t work out like they would have hoped it would, but The Mummy was so successful, why not reboot it?

But if there is one monster story that deserves to get a modern day retelling, it’s Frankenstein. Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro has been attached to this long-gestating project. The lack of development from the studio made it seem like they weren’t interested in the project. But in a recent interview, del Toro reveals that he has in fact been given the green light to rewrite the script.

While doing the pressers last year for his lighthearted family boxing drama Real Steel, Shawn Levy revealed that one of his next upcoming projects would be a revision of Frankenstein. Not much was heard since the announcement was made, but now we are learning that Levy is actually leaving the project, which could be helmed by Lucky Number Slevin director Paul McGuigan.

McGuigan is in talks with Fox to direct the project. At first Levy wanted to create a big-budget version of the classic horror film, which would involve motion-capture technology, but Fox wanted to have a low budget film. There has been no confirmation if that was the difference that made Levy leave the project, but we do know that McGuigan will still be using the script written by Chronicle director Max Landis.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. But what if you could judge an author by his or her book?

Artist Selin Arisoy sent us a gallery of images that she created where she took the visage of a handful of timeless fiction authors and characterized them as their famous novels. H.P. Lovecraft as The Call of Cthulhu, Edgar Allan Poe as The Raven, Ray Bradbury as Fahrenheit 451, Mary Shelley as Frankenstein, and Frank Herbert as Dune.

Check them all out below.

If we could all just bow our heads, please. A moment of silence for my wallet, which just died of a sudden and painful one-two punch of Blu-ray pre-orders. First Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures, now this…

In celebration of Universal’s 100th anniversary, eight iconic movie monsters are being resurrected and digitally restored (for the first time ever) on Blu-ray. Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection is the definitive box set for film buffs and horror aficionados. Just in time for Halloween, the collection will be released on October 2nd for yet-to-be-announced price.