Speaking to Vulture, while promoting his role in the new neo-noir film, “Disappearance at Clifton Hill” David Cronenberg didn’t mince words when it came the time to talk about superhero movies.
The 76-year-old director of such sci-fi classics as “The Fly” and “The Dead Zone” was asked about genre cinema and whether he’d ever want to make another movie dealing with the fantastical— by my account, he hasn’t really delved into science fiction filmmaking since 1999’s “Existenz”. Cronenberg didn’t brush off the possibility, but added that, if he were to ever go back to sci-fi, it for sure wouldn’t be in the form of a superhero movie.
“It really depends on how relevant it feels to me and to the world at large,” said Cronenberg. “I could do that again. I absolutely could do that again. The version of genre that is most forceful in Hollywood right now — the superhero thing — has never appealed to me much. So I was never tempted by that. To me, it’s too formulaic, and too adolescent in its emotional understanding.”
Cronenberg hasn’t directed a movie since 2014’s “Map to the Stars.” I asked Cronenberg last October in Montreal, as he was presenting a 4k restoration of his 1995 film, ‘Crash,” if he is planning on directing another movie. His answer was a surprising one. According to Cronenberg, he was currently in pre-production with plans to write and direct a Netflix mini-series based on his own 2014 novel “Consumed.”