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Maggie Gyllenhaal is giving Frankenstein fans a fresh feminist take on a classic story in her next movie as a director.
The Bride!, starring Jessie Buckley as Frankenstein’s punk-rock bride and Christian Bale as the scientist’s brooding monster, has released a wild new trailer ahead of the movie’s March 6, 2026 theatrical release.
The Irish actress, 35, and the English actor, 51, are joined by an all-star supporting cast: Penélope Cruz, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Annette Bening, and Gyllenhaal’s husband Peter Sarsgaard and brother Jake.
“A lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (Bening, 67) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride is born,” reads an official synopsis for the movie. “What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!”
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
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Gyllenhaal, 47, sets The Bride! in 1930s Chicago, inspired by the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, itself based on novelist Mary Shelley’s classic characters. In the radical new adaptation, Buckley as the titular bride “lusts for romance and ignites a radical social movement,” as Variety noted in 2024.
Warner Bros.
“It is beyond my wildest dreams getting to go back and work with [Gyllenhaal] again,” Buckley told IndieWire in March 2024. The Hamnet star earned an Oscar nod for her role in the actress-filmmaker’s 2021 feature-length directorial debut The Lost Daughter, during which she said the two “really fell in love.”
Sarsgaard, 54, previously told The Independent that The Bride! is a “big, romantic, deeply romantic, wild, punk monster movie,” which is “going to be energizing.”
Warner Bros. will release The Bride! in theaters March 6, 2026.
