has opened up on putting his to Netflix executives as a television series, who greenlit writing a first episode before rejecting the director’s project. The sci-fi drama, to a three-and-a-half minute applause before Cronenberg spoke to the audience, follows Karsh ( ), a prominent businessman and widower who, inconsolable since the death of his wife ( ) invents a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor the decomposition of deceased loved ones in their graves. Cronenberg spoke at Cannes’ press conference for the film on Tuesday, explaining how he envisioned the story working well as a series.
He flew to Los Angeles to speak with two Netflix execs who financed the writing of a first episode – which they loved. But after the second, they did not want to go any further. “They said – and this is a very Hollywood thing to say – ‘It’s not what we fell in love with in the room,'” Cronenberg said.
“Later, I felt that what they fell in love with in the room was me, which was very flattering, but not the script. “I felt I can’t let this die, let’s see if we can turn it into a movie..
. It could be a series, but it doesn’t have to be.” Cronenberg touched on how deeply his own life influenced the story after losing his beloved wife, Carolyn, to cancer just as Cassel’s character does.
He labeled some tougher critics of his film “ignorant” and “stupid” as they paid little attention to the element conspiracy plays in.