Only a few days ago, we shared the news that David Cronenberg had finally found the backing he needed to get his Hollywood-set drama Maps To The Stars into production.
This came in the wake of disappointing news that the erstwhile 'king of venereal horror' was struggling to find the requisite backing for two movies, both sequels: one a follow-up to his 1986 hit The Fly (one of his few studio movies) and the second a continuation of his superb 2007 gangster drama, Eastern Promises.
In an interview with Digital Spy, Cronenberg confirmed that, sadly, both of those projects will probably never happen. Dealing with Eastern Promises 2 first, the director said it was "pretty much dead", stating that Focus Features could neither afford to finance the picture, nor could it afford to relinquish the rights to another studio.
"I do think there are other places;" Cronenberg explained, "independent producers would happily have taken the Steven Knight script, which was really good, and produced it separately from Focus even with them having distribution."
Similarly, the Fly sequel is in a similarly bleak situation, due to what Cronenberg called "Budget constraints and other things". The premise he had in mind, it seems, was rather too grand for the sort of money Fox wanted to spend on it.
"What was in it that attracted them could not be done low-budget," Cronenberg revealed. "So I think that was the problem."
Annoyingly, it seems that filmmaking economics have prevented Cronenberg from returning to the body horror genre with his Fly sequel - the kinds of movies fans of his 70s and 80s output have been clamouring for him to return to.
Might we suggest a visit to Kickstarter, Mr Cronenberg?
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