Summary
- Netflix executives rejected David Cronenberg’s concept for a 10-episode series, leading him to turn it into a film instead.
- The Shrouds
is deeply personal for Cronenberg, echoing his own experiences with loss and grief after his wife’s death. - Despite mixed reviews, Cronenberg defends the film’s narrative direction and highlights its exploration of conspiracy theories surrounding death.
The Shrouds from seminal director David Cronenberg premiered at Cannes this week, but its journey began as a concept for a 10-episode series pitched to Netflix. During a press conference for the sci-fi thriller, Cronenberg revealed that Netflix execs rejected the project (via The Hollywood Reporter). According to Cronenberg, the streamer’s executives liked the script for the first episode but did not want to move forward after the second episode.
“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.”
The Shrouds holds deep personal meaning for Cronenberg, a director whose filmography includes iconic works like Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, and Crimes of the Future. The Shrouds reflects a tragic event in Cronenberg’s own life: the loss of his wife Carolyn to cancer in 2017, which mirrors the loss suffered by the film’s protagonist. Vincent Cassel portrays Karsh, an innovative businessman grappling with grief after his wife’s death, who builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.
Along with Cassel, The Shrouds stars Diane Kruger as Karsh’s late wife, Becca and her sister, Terry. Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, and Elizabeth Saunders round out the cast.
David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds Opens to Mixed Reviews
The Shrouds (2024)
Described as Cronenberg’s “most personal film”, Cassel plays Karsh, a grieving widower, who builds an innovative device to help people connect with the dead.
- Release Date
- September 25, 2024
- Runtime
- 1h 59m
- Budget
- Prospero Pictures, SBS International
- Studio(s)
- Pyramide Distribution
Despite receiving three-and-a-half-minute applause at its Cannes premiere on May 20th, critical reception for The Shrouds remains divided. Currently sitting at a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 reviews, the film has garnered opinions at both ends of the spectrum. IndieWire praises it as “enormously rewarding” (awarding it an A-), while The Daily Telegraph labels it “the steepest disappointment of Cronenberg’s late career.” Some critics fall somewhere in between, acknowledging the film’s stylish and darkly humorous exploration of grief but finding its narrative direction occasionally falls flat.
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Cronenberg is aware that The Shroudsis dividing critics, and he finds the notion that some have overlooked the film’s conspiracy element “ignorant” and “stupid.”
“If you’re an atheist like I am and you don’t believe in an afterlife then the death of someone is meaningless… It’s very difficult for people to live with no meaning,” he said.
He added:
“One way that you can create meaning when perhaps there isn’t any, is to come up with a theory, a conspiracy, that explains why a person died… Whatever the conspiracy is, it gives you a sense of knowledge and power that you know something that other people don’t know. It empowers you. These very stupid journalists who did not see this, there was a purpose to it. You might think it doesn’t work is one thing, but to not notice it to me is a problem as a filmmaker.”
Cronenberg is not the only acclaimed filmmaker to have recently revealed a Netflix rejection. Last month, David Lynch shared that the streamer had turned down his animated featureSnootworld. The Twin Peaks co-creator shared he is still looking for financial backers for Snootworld, which he co-wrote alongside Caroline Thompson (The Nightmare Before Christmas).
