Anyone who feels directors should give it up once they reach a certain age should take a serious look at David Cronenberg.
The man who gave us Rabid, the great reinvention of The Fly, A History of Violence, Naked Lunch and Eastern Promises, just to name a few, will be turning 70 next year, but he’s been making movies as good, if not better, than ever.
Right now Cronenberg is back with the adaptation of the novel by Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, starring Robert Pattinson, and he’s already planning his next film, Maps to the Stars.
Cronenberg wants Pattinson in Maps as well, along with Viggo Mortensen who was also great in History of Violence and Eastern Promises, but here’s the real kicker: He wants to shoot the film in L.A.
“I’ve never shot a foot of film in America,” Cronenberg told The Playlist and Empire, and like zombie master George Romero with his beloved Pittsburgh, Cronenberg has stayed up in his native Canada for his whole career. (Although funny enough, Romero’s now set up his home base in Canada, finally leaving Pittsburgh behind).
Cronenberg has transitioned out of being a horror director in fine style, delivering movies that are no less intense or challenging, and everything he’s done has delivered on a strong intellectual level, because the guy’s damn smart. If he does indeed leave Canada to make a movie, it will never be a sell out, because he’s had the opportunity to sell out many times without taking the bait.
Among the movies Cronenberg has been offered include Top Gun, Flashdance, Witness, The Juror, Total Recall, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It would be pretty nuts to think of Cronenberg making any of those movies, but he also made Fast Company, a movie about car racing, because he loves the sport, and producer Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) wanted him to direct Hitchhiker’s Guide because he believed Cronenberg could make a great comedy.
Along with being extremely intelligent, Cronenberg is also known to be very open minded, and he did consider projects like Flashdance fairly before passing on them. Wherever he decides to make his next film, there’s no doubt that even if he was going to direct a Disney remake, it would still be distinctly Cronenberg all the way.
