Cary Elwes is back with Mel Brooks on Very Young Frankenstein, a comedy series inspired by Brooks’ 1974 classic Young Frankenstein, and he says the reunion has been every bit as lively as the setup suggests.
Elwes said he told Brooks he is working harder than he is, a line that fits a project bringing together a 99-year-old comedy legend and a cast that also includes Kristof Konrad, Zach Galifianakis, Kumail Nanjiani, Dolly Wells, Spencer House and Nikki Crawford. The series was first announced last year and is now moving forward with Brooks returning as a producer.
The project matters because it reaches back to a 33-year-old collaboration between Elwes and Brooks on Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the 1993 spoof of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves that arrived a couple of years after the Kevin Costner film it lampooned. Over three decades later, Elwes is again working alongside Brooks on material built from one of the director’s most durable comic inventions.
Elwes also made clear why he wanted in. “Well, I’ve always wanted to work with Taika [Waititi],” he said, calling himself a huge fan of Waititi’s work from television through Jojo Rabbit and back to television. He added that Waititi’s willingness to move between formats shows he is “a man who’s just interested in creating” and “not particularly too choosy about what sort of a screen that is.”
There is a practical question inside the nostalgia: can a series built from an over half-century-old premise still feel fresh to modern viewers? Elwes said the answer may rest in the people making it, especially Galifianakis, whom he called “terrific as the very young Frankenstein.” That makes Very Young Frankenstein less a simple revival than a deliberate passing of the comic torch from Brooks to a new ensemble.
For Elwes, the pitch is already working. He is back with Brooks, eager to work with Waititi, and stepping into a series that tries to turn a 1974 film into something new without losing the snap that made the original last.
