Is This A Musical? Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! Takes Inspiration From An Unusual Source

"It's bonkers," says star John Magaro.
the bride frankenstein

With two different takes on Frankenstein hitting our screens soon, it’s only natural that audiences have been chomping at the bit to learn about the both of them. It’s good news, then, that we finally have more details on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s upcoming film The Bride!, starring Jessie Buckley as none other than the Bride of Frankenstein herself. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about the new thriller September 5, star John Magaro spilled the beans on the film — which he stars in alongside his September 5 costar Peter Sarsgaard — and what the reimagining of the classic monsters story takes inspiration from. 

“Peter was kind enough to recommend me to his wife [Gyllenhaal] for The Bride!, so I had a really good time shooting it last spring,” Magaro told THR. “It’s a wild movie. It’s very different than The Lost Daughter, Maggie’s previous film that she directed. It’s like a mix of a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie, Young Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands. It’s just a wild, fun ride, and at the helm is Christian Bale and the amazing Jessie Buckley. It’s something that people haven’t seen before, and I’m really excited to get it in front of an audience. It’s bonkers.”

Most of that inspo seems fairly standard, especially the original James Whale version of Mary Shelley’s novel, and Bonnie and Clyde, given what little we’ve seen from the set of the film. But the Astaire/Rogers connection is an unusual one, as is Young Frankenstein — could we be seeing more comedy from the film than we’d anticipated? Or maybe even a musical number? Who’s to say. 

Bale stars in the film as the monster to Buckley’s bride, alongside Magaro, Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, and Annette Bening. The Bride’s official synopsis says the film will follow “a lonely Frankenstein [as he travels] to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police and a wild and radical social movement.”

The Bride! hits theaters on September 26.