Todd Lincoln Talks The Fly Remake That Almost Was; Practical Effects Aplenty!
In the decades since David Cronenberg put his body-horror spin on The Fly, there have been many rumors about the classic film being remade yet again with a few different directors attached. One of those directors was Todd Lincoln (The Apparition), who has finally opened up about the doomed project.
In an interview with Collider, Lincoln spoke mostly about his V/H/S: Viral segment “Gorgeous Vortex,” which is included as a bonus segment on the film’s Blu-ray disc. But it’s his reveal about The Fly that most interested us, as his vision sounds quite grand.
“My version was way outside the box conceptually and visually,” said Lincoln. “Not at all what people would be expecting. It was a strange mix of influences such as Val Lewton, Neal Stephenson, Alan Pakula, Todd Haynes, Chris Cunningham, Michael Crichton, various horror manga, and a touch of something you might find in The Animatrix.”
“The film would have been done almost entirely with practical effects. My story had very little in common with Kurt Neumann’s original The Fly or David Cronenberg’s remake. Both of those are classics so there’s no point in touching them. You have to go a completely new direction while still making it feel like a Fly story at its core and respecting the history of the franchise. Who becomes a fly… how they become a fly…. and what happens… was all completely different in my take.”
“Ultimately, I don’t think it was the right time for it to be made. The script was not all the way there, and audiences were not ready for where we were headed. I would approach it differently now. And while I’d certainly be open to revisiting The Fly someday, I’d also love to see Fox let Cronenberg make the sequel that he scripted. If you love movies, why would you not green light that??”
Well damn. If only, eh?
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