EXCLUSIVE: It’s alive! It’s alive! A comedy series based on Mel Brooks‘ classic 1974 film Young Frankenstein is nearing a pilot order at FX, Deadline has learned.
Brooks is said to have given the project, Very Young Frankenstein, his blessing and will executive produce with a trio of creatives from FX’s What We Do In The Shadows: Stefani Robinson, who will serve as writer and showrunner, Taika Waititi, who will direct the pilot, and Garrett Basch. Also executive producing are Brooks’ producing partner Kevin Salter (History of the World, Part 2, Space Balls 2) and Young Frankenstein producer Michael Gruskoff. 20th Television is the studio.
Details regarding the reboot are under wraps. The plot description is: Inspired by Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Previously, on What We Do In The Shadows, Colin Robinson, a main character in the series, was turned into a baby who had to grow up all over again. Whether or not the show creatives have something similar in mind for Very Young Frankenstein is unknown. Casting for the pilot has yet to begin.
Reps from FX and 20th Television declined to comment.
Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, 1974
Young Frankenstein is a parody of the horror genre, including films inspired by Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein. The horror-comedy starred Gene Wilder, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brooks, as Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of mad scientist Victor Frankenstein. It’s important to note: the younger Frankenstein pronounces the family name as “Fronkensteen,” to distinguish himself from his ancestor, whose unorthodox experiments have brought the American scientist shame. When Frederick inherits his grandfather’s Transylvania castle, he wants to prove Victor was not insane. Alongside Igor (pronounced as “Eye-gore”), whose grandfather assisted Victor in the lab, the pair attempts to save the muddied Frankenstein name by creating their own monster. What could go wrong?
The black and white film also famously starred Peter Boyle as the monster, Marty Feldman as Igor, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher, Madeline Kahn as Frederick’s fiancée, Elizabeth, and Teri Garr as Inga, among many others. Brooks played multiple characters, including voicing Victor Frankenstein.
Young Frankenstein is the latest of Brooks’ classics to be adapted in the 2020s. Hulu gave his 1981 film History of the World, Part 1 a sequel sketch comedy TV series treatment with History of the World, Part 2, starring Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, and Nick Kroll, with Brooks serving as the narrator and executive producing. Brooks’ out-of-this-universe feature, Spaceballs (1987), has a sequel film from Amazon MGM+ currently casting.
Young Frankenstein was previously adapted as a Broadway musical, which debuted on November 8, 2007. A live musical event based on the musical was in the works at ABC in 2020, but the network didn’t move forward.
Brooks’ other popular films include Blazing Saddles (1974), Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), The Producers (1967, 2005), High Anxiety (1977) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).
