News Headlines Thy Name Is FRANKENSTEIN

Stories Compiled By: Ken Hulsey
Sources: Various and Noted

With Halloween quickly approaching is it any wonder that the news headlines over the past 24 hours have been dominated by Frankenstein's monster!

“I, Frankenstein” starring Aaron Eckhart will release in U.S. Feb 22, 2013
By: Anastasia Alvarado (Hollywood News.com)

HollywoodNews.com: Aaron Eckhart will play Adam Frankenstein in the Lakeshore Entertainment, Hopscotch Features and Lionsgate production of “I, Frankenstein,” commencing in Australia in January. The film was written and is to be directed by Stuart Beattie (director of Australia’s breakout hit “Tomorrow, When the War Began,” and writer of such films as “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “G.I. Joe,” “30 Days of Night,” and “Collateral”), and is based on a graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux, co-creator of the “Underworld” franchise. Lionsgate will distribute the film in the United States, Lakeshore will handle international sales and E1/Hopscotch will distribute in Australia. U.S. release is slated for February 22, 2013.

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Shawn Levy Dishes On His Untitled Frankenstein Project
By Justin Monroe (Complex.com)

When we recently interviewed director Shawn Levy about his new robot boxing movie Real Steel, we had to ask him about about a rather conspicuous genre movie that his IMDB page says he's rumored to be directing and currently developing. Known only as Untitled Frankenstein Project, it makes a genre fan's mind race with the possibilities, both good and bad. Rather than speculate, check out what he had to say about it:

"It’s an amazing script and, yes, I am attached to direct it. That’s true, and if I can get the right pairing of two young guys I’ll make it. It’s a radical retelling of the legend, and the reason that the casting is so critical is that, though it is still very much a monster movie and a genre piece, it really focuses on the friendship and relationship and betrayals between Victor Frankenstein and Igor, who is at once his friend and assistant, all set against this discovery of a science that might change human science forever. So if I can cast it to my liking I will be making it. If I make it I’m gonna make it next year."

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Frankenstein moon: Astronomers vindicate Mary Shelley's account

Frankenstein moon: 'Frankenstein' author Mary Shelley claimed that the tale came to her in a vision late one night as the moon streamed through her window. Her account was disputed, but astronomers at Texas State University have now substantiated her 'Frankenstein moon.'

By Eoin O'Carroll (CSMonitor.com)

Many literary critics have long thought that Mary Shelley fabricated her account of how she came up with the idea for her 1818 novel "Frankenstein." But a research by a team of astronomers suggests that she was telling the truth.

In the preface to the 1831 edition of the novel, Shelley wrote that the idea first came to her in the summer of 1816, where she stayed in a manor on Lake Geneva with her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and the writers Lord Byron and John Polidori. Byron suggested that each of them write a ghost story. Days passed, but Shelley produced nothing but "that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship."

Then late one night, after a conversation about the possibility of using electricity to reanimate cadavers, the story came to her in a waking dream in which she saw a "hideous phantasm of a man" being animated by "the working of some powerful engine." When Shelley opened her eyes, she saw moonlight entering her room through the shutters, and a story was born.

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The female ‘Frankenstein’ reaches its climax
By Meredith Deliso (The Brooklyn Paper)


Park Slope’s “feminist Frankenstein” trilogy has finally reached its climax.

Rabbit Hole Ensemble’s year-long exploration of Mary Shelley’s classic concludes this month with “The Tale of Frankenstein’s Daughter” — an interpretation the explores the feminine side of Frankenstein.

So in Stanton Wood’s play, our mad scientist is an infertile doctor who, in her desperation to have a child, creates an impassioned, yet misunderstood, man-killing monster.

“It’s much more a story about a mother and a child, about parenting, loss, rejection and isolation,” said director Edward Elefterion. “It’s less scientific, and more emotional.”

This gender-bending trilogy kicked off last fall with “The Tragic Story of Dr. Frankenstein,” which explored Shelley’s thriller from the doctor’s perspective. The trilogy switched gears this past spring with “Doctor Frankenstein’s Magical Creature,” this time told from the monster’s point of view. This third and final piece blends both plays together for a more fully realized, emotional story, running in a minimal, Kabuki theater-inspired production at Park Slope’s BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange starting Oct. 13.

“It’s much deeper, much richer, much more emotional,” said Elefterion. “It’s a whole new beast.”

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