Here’s your first look at Christian Bale’s suited-up as Frankenstein in actress-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on the classic monster with The Bride, her forthcoming feature at Warner Bros.
Gyllenhaal shared the first look of Bale today on her Instagram, alongside an image of Jessie Buckley as “The Bride.”
Bale and Buckley star in the pic alongside Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, and Peter Sarsgaard. The film’s logline reads: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aid of 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 movie is being produced by Emma Tillinger Koskoff (Academy Award-nominee The Joker, The Irishman, The Wolf of Wall Street), Gyllenhaal, Talia Kleinhendler (The Lost Daughter), and Osnat Handelsman-Keren (The Lost Daughter). EPs are Courtney Kivowitz (The Lost Daughter) and Carla Raij (Maestro, The Fablemans).
The pic will mark Gyllenhaal’s second directorial effort following The Lost Daughter, her screen adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley. The film was nominated for three Oscars: Best Actress (Colman), Best Supporting Actress (Buckley), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Gyllenhaal).
The Bride is currently slated for release in IMAX on October 3, 2025. The pic is just the first Frankenstein adaptation audiences can expect on the big screen soon. Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has a Frankenstein feature set at Netflix with Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, and Christian Convery signed on to star.