For years now, Fox has been trying to figure out a way back into “The Fly,” and now they’ve found it. Deadline reports that J.D. Dillard, the director behind the “Chronicle“-esque indie “Sleight,” has been tapped for the gig, and it’s great news for him, and we wish the filmmaker all the best. That being said, we still can’t help thinking about what David Cronenberg would’ve done.
Way back in 2009, Cronenberg was hired to direct a remake of his very own 1986 body horror classic, but things eventually fell apart. “I wrote a script and at the moment Fox is not wanting to do the project,” the director told us in 2011. And by time we caught up with Cronenberg again a year later, he was ready to share some details of what his approach would’ve been.
“It wasn’t really a remake, it was more of a sequel or a sidebar. 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,” he said in 2012.
“Meditation” is probably not a word that gets you very far in horror movie pitch meetings, even for someone like Cronenberg, and so I supposed it’s not a big surprise Fox weren’t keen. So, it’ll be Dillard, as co-writer and director, who likely take the more direct genre route Fox probably wants with “The Fly,” but hopefully he’ll have a take that puts his own stamp on the material.
God-Damned, I miss Cronenberg. Even when Rump misused the word, ‘epic’ (claiming a minor fail, whilst grandiosity walked in disbelief)), I could not help thinking about flies, Croneberg and Rump. The thought excited me so much I popped a pimple and a then a semi boner (by the way, I blame Rump for the half-assed pole, not Cronbergian body horror)! Please return David, and give voice to the Rumpisms that enter, then flee, the mind faster than Parker’s exclamation,: “What fresh hell is this!!!!!!!!