A few weeks ago Shawn Levy stepped aside from directing Fox’s planned revisionist take on Frankenstein and was replaced by Lucky Number Slevin helmer Paul McGuigan. Now it seems they’re looking at casting and Daniel Radcliffe has stepped forward, expressing interest in playing a character called Hunchback, who’s Frankenstein’s assistant, according to TheWrap.
The script, from Chronicle’s Max Landis, apparently “puts a sci-fi take on this classic story about a creature produced through a scientific experiment”. Hunchback seems to be an Igor-type role (although probably not Igor himself, as Universal might kick up a fuss because they created Ygor for Son Of Frankenstein and Ghost Of Frankenstein, as well as the idea of the doctor having a hunchbacked assistant in their earlier Frankenstein movies).
It fits well with Radcliffe’s current trend for darker, more interesting roles, as the Hunchback is described as “pathologically dirty and dressed in old clowns’ clothing”.
Fox is currently trying to finalise the script, as they want to move forward with the film as soon as possible, in order to get a jump on numerous competing projects at other studios.