Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ premieres at Venice with Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi arrived at the Venice Film Festival Saturday for the world premiere of Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” the kickoff to what's expected to be the film's major awards season push. The audience gave it a 13-minute standing ovation, one of the most enthusastic of the 82nd edition of the festival.

Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein and Elordi is the monster in this adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, which del Toro has been dreaming about making for decades.

“It’s the movie that I’ve been in training for 30 years to do,” del Toro told The Associated Press.

Speaking in Venice, del Toro said he feels like he's in “postpartum depression” now that he's completed the film, a gothic feast of sets.

Isaac said before they started making “Frankenstein,” del Toro told him, “I’m creating this banquet for you, you just have to show up and eat.”

“This film feels particularly personal," Isaac added. ”I think ultimately it is about outsiders."

Elordi joined the production fairly late in the process, and threw himself into the childlike monster, who he didn't find so hard to relate to.

“It’s a vessel that I could put every part of myself into,” Elordi said. “In so many ways the creature that is on screen in that movie is the purest form of myself, he’s more me than I am.”

Outside the red carpet, several hundred anti-war protested gathered peacefully, hoping to turn the spotlight to the war in Gaza.

The last time del Toro was at Venice was with “The Shape of Water” in 2017, which won the festival’s top prize that year before going on to pick up the best picture and best director Oscar in 2018. Netflix does not yet have a best picture winner in their arsenal, but is betting big on “Frankenstein.” Del Toro’s last film, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” won the streamer its first best animated film Oscar.

Like “The Shape of Water,” “Frankenstein” is up for the big awards at Venice, where it will be competing with films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia,”Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” Winners will be announced by the Alexander Payne-led jury on Sept. 6.

Netflix plans to release “Frankenstein” in theaters on Oct. 17, before it comes to streaming Nov. 7.

For more coverage of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, visit https://apnews.com/hub/venice-film-festival.

Oscar Isaac poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Jacob Elordi poses for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Oscar Isaac, from left, director Guillermo del Toro and Jacob Elordi pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

Composer Alexandre Desplat, from left, producer J. Miles Dale, Christoph Waltz, producer Scott Stuber, Felix Kammerer, Oscar Isaac, director Guillermo del Toro, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth pose for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

Jacob Elordi poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

Oscar Isaac poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Frankenstein' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.

The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state's current map.

The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling last week significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans in various states grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

It could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, reversing decades of gains in minority voting rights.

President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.

Alabama lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday on legislation that would allow a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.

In light of the court's ruling on Louisiana's districts, Alabama officials have asked the high court to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters and instead let the state revert to a map previously passed by Republican lawmakers. That map could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.

Alabama's primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state's request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.

“This is the voice of the people,” Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said while promoting the Republican plan. “We had three judges determine how five million people were supposed to vote, and I don’t think that’s the way.”

During a House committee hearing, several Black residents urged lawmakers not to change the current congressional districts.

“Representation matters — not just politically but in access, in power and in who gets to be heard,” said Eliza Jane Franklin, of rural Barbour County.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The move comes after pressure from Trump.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.

Some clergy members have denounced the plan to split Memphis’ congressional district, and Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about it.

“This decision undermines the work that my father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote, noting that his father was assassinated in Memphis. He added: “Do not dismantle the only Congressional district that provides Black voters in Memphis a fair opportunity to have a voice in our democracy. Do not take this nation back to the days of Jim Crow.”

After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.

Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts.

Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana's congressional primary. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.

Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday he had signed a redrawn map passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. It could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. The new map was immediately challenged in court as a partisan gerrymander that violates a Florida constitutional provision against drawing districts that favor one political party over another.

All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

FILE - Pansies bloom in front of the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., April 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

FILE - The Tennessee Capitol is seen, Jan. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)