Guillermo del Toro Explains Why He Ditched His 2-Movie Plan for ‘Frankenstein’ Adaptation

Guillermo del Toro wanted to recapture how it must have felt reading “Frankenstein” for the first time — before it became a ubiquitous cultural institution — in his adaptation.

In a conversation with TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Toronto International Film Festival, del Toro explained that “the book has become second nature to me” and strove to make his film feel as close to what it was like to read Mary Shelley’s iconic horror novel for the first time.

“It’s a lifetime of stuff in that movie, plus the biographical street that completely comes from my life,” he said. “I cannot parcel it and say, ‘this comes from here,…