Caffeinated Clint
20th Century Fox seem interested in doing ‘something’ with “The Fly” title…. but just how interested? Judging by the fact they’ve now passed on a couple of interesting ideas on how to update the classic horror film – last made in 1986 with Jeff Goldblum garnering the, erm, buzz – it’d seem it’s hardly a priority.
David Cronenberg, who gave us the much-loved ’80s take on “The Fly”, had recently attempted to coax Fox into greenlighting a follow-up he had conceived.
“It wasn’t really a remake, it was more of a sequel or a sidebar”, says the filmmaker, whose “Eastern Promises” sequel was also recently nixed by a major in an interview with The Playlist. “It was a meditation on fly-ness. None of the same characters or anything and, of course, with an understanding of modern technology. It was something I was very pleased with and it was a disappointment not to get it made.”
With Cronenberg on both story duties, not to mention calling the shots, that “Fly” update would’ve definitely been one many would’ve liked to have seen, well, fly.
Shortly before Cronenberg pitched Fox, Todd Lincoln (“The Apparition”) had the wings of his “Fly” remake clipped.
”My version of The Fly was a dark, twisted, grounded re-imagining”, Lincoln, who is set to direct the feature adaptation of Whitley Strieber’s “The Nye Incidents”, exclusively tells us. “Part Val-Lewton, part J.G Ballard, part Neal Stephenson with some Horror Manga touches. This had nothing to do with the Cronenberg version and it would absolutely not have had the same color palette. This was an all new vision and direction, but still done with complete respect for all five other Fly films and the original short story published in Playboy magazine that started it all.”
Lincoln’s version would’ve shared more in common with the original Vincent Price movie, than the later remake.
“I especially dig the original The Fly (1958) and the third film Curse Of The Fly (1965). In my version, someone still becomes a fly, but who becomes it… how they become it… and what happens… are all completely different. I would have done it almost entirely with practical FX. Anyway, at the time I developed my take, it was too far out for the studio and they ended up deciding to do more of a straight remake / update of Cronenberg’s Fly.”
Which, of course, they didn’t do either.
If Happy Madison gets the go-ahead to do a “Fly” remake, starring David Spade as the looney scientist who sprouts wings, there’ll be trouble.
