As you may recall, it was announced way back in 2017 that David Cronenberg‘s novel Consumed was becoming a series at AMC, but alas, that project never came to be. As it turns out, Cronenberg’s Consumed subsequently found its way over to Netflix as a potential series for the streaming service, but that project has also failed to come to fruition.
Speaking with Variety this week, Cronenberg details what happened with Netflix’s Consumed series, while also teasing that the project is now taking the form of a non-Netflix movie.
“I tried and we got to two episodes, and then [Netflix] decided not to do it,” Cronenberg explains. “And I was disappointed because I was interested in streaming in cinematic terms. I thought that would be a very interesting experience for me as a writer, as a creator, and then also as a director. And maybe I’ll have that experience one day…”
Cronenberg continues, “So the project that I was talking to Netflix about, it will be feature film instead. I don’t have a screenplay yet for that but I will be writing that.”
Speaking about Netflix in an earlier portion of the Variety interview, Cronenberg notes, “I think my feeling is I really was very interested in the whole Netflix streaming phenomenon, definitely. But I think that they’re still very conservative. I mean, I think they’re still like a Hollywood studio. I thought maybe they would be different.
“The difference is that Netflix can show very interesting streaming series from Korea, from Finland, and they say it’s a Netflix original, but it isn’t really — it’s something they have acquired. But I think when it comes to their actual production that they do themselves, they’re very conservative. I think they think in mainstream terms, that’s my experience with them anyway.”
Cronenberg’s debut novel Consumed was published in 2015. In the novel, “Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding a famous couple, Célestine and Aristide, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead, and Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. Yet Naomi sets off to find him, and as she delves deeper into the couple’s lives, she discovers the news story may only skim the surface of the disturbing acts they performed together. Journalist 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 and 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.”
Up next from David Cronenberg is of course Crimes of the Future, which NEON is releasing in June. Afterwards, his follow-up movie will be The Shrouds, announced last week.
