Steph Lady wrote the original script, which was sold to Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope; Coppola initially intended to direct the film himself after having directed Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), but ultimately chose to serve as producer instead.

Coppola wanted Robert De Niro to play the Creature above all else, which led to De Niro being cast over other considered actors such as Gérard Depardieu and Andy García.

Robert De Niro chose Kenneth Branagh to direct the film.

Branagh brought in Frank Darabont to write a second draft of the screenplay, insisting on incorporating elements from Mary Shelley's novel that were absent from the original script, along with explicitly sexual birth imagery inspired by themes of death in Shelley's own life.

Unlike the novel, the film includes a re-created bride because Branagh felt it made more psychological sense, reflecting his attempt to differentiate his staging from James Whale's earlier Frankenstein films, which he described as 'high camp'.

Filming took place from October 21, 1993, to February 25, 1994.

Robert De Niro studied stroke victims to prepare for how the Creature would speak.

Original screenwriter Steph Lady publicly criticized the finished film, calling it 'a misshapen monster born of Kenneth Branagh's runaway ego' and calling the casting of De Niro as the monster 'beyond inexplicable'.

Frank Darabont, who wrote the second draft, called it 'the best script I ever wrote and the worst movie I've ever seen,' describing the film as loud and operatic in contrast to the subtlety of Shelley's novel, and said the finished film was entirely Branagh's vision.