Venice 2025: Guillermo Del Toro insists he is “not afraid of AI”
At the press conference for his upcoming movie and literary adaptation, Frankenstein, Guillermo Del Toro revealed his thoughts on AI.
The filmmaker’s next big project will take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, originally penned by the teenager in 1818. The Netflix movie will feature Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth in the main roles.
The director and team spoke eloquently about the upcoming project at the Venice Film Festival, ahead of its premiere on the same night, August 30th. He was asked first about Netflix’s arrangement; the film will get a short theatrical run before launching exclusively on the streaming service.
Responding to a question which probed whether this release structure was suitable for the filmmaker, del Toro said, “I mean, look at my size. I always want more of everything! To me, the battle we are going to fight in telling stories is in two fronts. Obviously there’s the size of the screen, but the size of the ideas is very important.”
He continued, “The size of the ambition, the size of the artistic hunger that you bring to cinema is a matter of can we reclaim scale and we reclaim scale of ideas? Can we challenge ourselves to that? It’s a dialogue, and it’s a very fluid dialogue.”
He later pondered how the monster at the heart of the movie might work to reflect our modern age. The Pinocchio filmmaker agreed that “we live in a time of terror and intimidation, certainly,” but the counter to that “is love.”
He carried forth the same notion of human resilience when questioned about the rise of Artificial Intelligence. “I’m not afraid of AI,” del Toro said self-assuredly. “I’m afraid of natural stupidity, which is much more abundant.”
Elsewhere in the Frankenstein universe, the role of the monster did not originally belong to Elordi. Andrew Garfield was initially announced for the part, but scheduling conflicts caused by the actors’ strike forced him to vacate his role in Frankenstein. Elordi was drafted in as part of a stacked ensemble cast.
With three Oscars of his own, making him the first person in history to win trophies for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, and ‘Best Animated Feature’, del Toro was excited to usher in the new Frankenstein era.
The gothic adaptation will enjoy a limited theatrical release from October 17th. Watch the official trailer below.
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