David Cronenberg may have been hinting at retirement these last five years, but the legendary 77-year-old director may very well not be done with cinema.
Speaking at this year’s Lumiere Film Festival in France, Viggo Mortensen revealed that he’s working on a new film with Cronenberg, which is set to shoot sometime in 2021. Of course, no details were shared about what the film might be about. However, Cronenberg and Viggo teaming up for a movie again is not a stretch, both have become friends over the years thanks to their consummate working relationship with 3 films: “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” and “A Dangerous Method.'“
Could this collaboration be the one rumored last year?
If you remember, I asked Cronenberg, as he was presenting a 4k restoration of his 1995 film, ‘Crash,” at Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, what he was up to these days and he revealed tentative plans to write and direct a Netflix mini-series based on his own 2014 novel “Consumed.”
The screen adaptation of “Consumed” will surely please aficionados of Cronenberg’s past cinematic endeavors, as the novel is stacked with exquisitely detailed, voyeuristic body-horror. The novel follows a French couple in their sixties, who travel around the world in search of the most unusual people they can find to photograph.
Cronenberg, a maverick who has always flown by his own artistic free will, may not again deliver big-screen thrills such as “Videodrome,” “The Fly,” “Dead Ringers,” “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises,” but it doesn’t mean he can’t still make smart, urgent films about his deepest obsessions. One thing we can expect from “Consumed” is Cronenberg’s usual knack for avoiding conventionality. His parasite-filled, sexually taboo-heavy, and ultra-violent art is what dreams are made of. Or is that nightmares?