Director David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Fly, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises) is getting ready to release his most recent film project Crimes of the Future, which looks absolutely crazy! He’s also got another project in the works titled The Shrouds, with Vincent Cassel set to star. But, he’s already lining up his next movie!
The filmmaker recently revealed in an interview with Variety that he is also going to adapt his own novel, Consumed, into a feature film. He doesn’t have a script written yet, as The Shrouds is currently his priority. However, he will get around to developing Consumed.
The project was originally being developed as a series for Netflix, but that didn’t really work out. Cronenberg explained why, saying: “It turns out that it’s not so easy to get a series with Netflix. In fact, it seems that it might be easier to get an independent film made if it’s of a certain type. I’d say maybe a film that isn’t the conservative kind of movie as Netflix would like.”
When asked if he was still working on Consumed, Cronenberg replied: “That’s correct. I don’t have a screenplay yet for that but I will be writing that.”
The story follows two freelance journalists, “Naomi and Nathan, who get drawn into two separate but equally intense stories. In Paris, Naomi investigates a potentially cannibalistic murder, while in Hungary, Nathan photographs a controversial surgeon and develops an unusual sexually transmitted infection.”
So that movie is definitely going to be interesting to watch when it eventually gets made! In the meantime, we’ll just have to enjoy watching Crimes of the Future and The Shrouds when they’re released.
Here’s the full description of the story from the novel:
The exhilarating debut novel by iconic filmmaker David Cronenberg: the story of two journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy.
Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. They are lovers and competitors—nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity, encountering each other only in airport hotels and browser windows.
Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment. Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. With the help of an eccentric graduate student named Hervé Blomqvist, Naomi sets off in pursuit of Aristide. As she delves deeper into Célestine and Aristide’s lives, disturbing details emerge about their sex life—which included trysts with Hervé and others. Can Naomi trust Hervé to help her?
Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltán Molnár, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnár’s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe’s. Nathan then travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.
These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves geopolitics, 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. Consumed is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world’s leading film directors.