A New Mary Shelley Biopic Will Detail The Author's Struggles To Write Frankenstein
Fulwell 73, the company behind "The Late Late Show with James Corden" and the most recent "Cinderella" adaptation starring Camila Cabello, have joined up with Rose Pictures ("Kill Your Darlings") to co-produce a new biopic about bisexual teenage goth icon, inventor of the science-fiction genre, and mother of "Frankenstein," Mary Shelley.
Titled "Mary's Monster," the film will focus on Shelley's process while writing her masterpiece, "Frankenstein." British director Farren Blackburn ("Daredevil," "Shut In," A Discovery of Witches") will direct from a screenplay by Deborah Baxtrom, of "Living with Frankenstein" fame. The film comes only a few years after the Elle Fanning led biopic "Mary Shelley."
According to the film's logline, "Mary's Monster" will be a look inside the mind of Shelley, and how she was able to get to the dark places necessary to write her genre-defining novel. Terrified of giving voice to the darkness of her subconscious mind, Mary Shelley locks into a dangerous battle with her own 'inner monster' as she struggles to write her seminal science fiction novel, "Frankenstein."
Published in 1818, Mary Shelley completely changed what was possible in gothic literature with "Frankenstein," completing the book when she was just 19-years-old. That's right, friends, we are indebted to a teenage girl for inventing one of the greatest monster stories of all time. "Frankenstein" has since been adapted and remade countless times, and the classic Universal Pictures adaptation in 1931 kicked off the American monster movie craze.
Mary Shelley is Cooler Than You
As legend has it, Mary Shelley came up with "Frankenstein" during a stay by Lake Geneva with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and the poet Lord Byron. The three were said to keep themselves entertained by sharing ghost stories, when they all made a bet to see who could write the scariest story possible. Within a year of the bet, Shelley had completed "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus," telling a horrific tale of a man playing God and reanimating a monstrous creature capable of expressing deep emotions, but he's forced to exist in a world that treats him like an abomination and pushes him toward a path of unchecked rage and violence. There are definitely those that question the validity of the "bet" story, but a biopic centered solely around her writing process sounds fascinating.
For those unaware, Mary Shelley is cooler and more goth than any of us could ever dream to be. She didn't just write horror stories, she lived them. After the death of her beloved Percy, she kept his calcified heart in a silken shroud and carried it around with her. His heart was only returned to his family vault after Mary's death, found in her desk and wrapped in the pages of one of his last poems, "Adonais." She was also rumored to have lost her virginity on her mother's grave, allegedly had a relationship with a woman her own husband was infatuated with, and helped secure passports for Isabel Robinson and Mary Diana Dods, allowing them to flee to Paris and live there disguised as man and wife. To put it simply, Mary Shelley rules and she deserves all of the biopics.