Writer/director David Cronenberg’s new film “The Shrouds” was first developed as a television series for Netflix. The sci-fi and body horror master even wrote what would have been the first two episodes, which eventually became the jumping off point for the movie script. But, as Cronenberg told IndieWire while a guest on this week’s episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, the major concept behind the series only partially survived.
“It was quite a rewrite,” said Cronenberg. “It wasn’t just a fusion of the two episodes at all.”
Both the film and would-be TV version revolve around the grieving widow and entrepreneur Karsh (Vincent Cassel) having invented Grave Tech, a technology business that allows family members to stream live video of their loved one’s corpse. One of the film’s subplots, Karsh’s attempts to expand his business into other countries, only hints at what would be the driving idea behind the never-made TV series.
“My pitch to Netflix, and maybe this became problematic, was that every week would be a different city, a different culture, a different country,” said Cronenberg. “And as at one point, Karsh says, ‘It’s always a fusion of politics, religion, and money — a very complex, dangerous kind of fusion when you’re dealing with burial.’ And I figured in each country he would run into all of those things and would meet some very interesting characters and have to solve many problems. And sometimes he would successfully start to establish a cemetery in that country, and in other countries it would be a failure and maybe it would be a danger to his life because of religious fanaticism.”
That intersection of culture, politics, religion, and commerce as it related to burying the dead fascinated Cronenberg, who went down the rabbit hole as he realized how fertile the story possibilities would be.
“I didn’t know exactly where it would lead, but I could see it could be quite juicy and quite delicious to go to all those countries,” said Cronenberg. “I did a lot of research about burial customs and my God, they’re infinite on this planet and also sometimes very bizarre, and I say maybe much more extreme than my [fictional] Grave Tech cemeteries, quite frankly, but that would be really interesting and it will lead you to having to comment on the human condition as it is lived in those various countries and cultures.”
According to Cronenberg, Netflix never explained its reasoning for passing after he wrote the first two scripts, but he suspected the project became too ambitious at the exact moment the streaming giant was becoming less so. The filmmaker also acknowledged his concept of an eight-episode first season shooting in eight different countries would come with a hefty production price tag.
While on the podcast, Cronenberg pushed back on the idea, as reported elsewhere, that the first two scripts easily translated into a feature-length movie. A decent amount of the setup in the would-be first episode, or what Netflix refers to as “the prototype,” did make its way into the movie version, including the anticipation of Karsh’s travel to Budapest. But the second episode was set in Reykjavík, Iceland — a storyline that only survives in the form of Karsh’s FaceTime conversation with an Icelandic activist.
One thing Cronenberg did like about how the two television episodes translated to his feature-length movie was that it led to a more open-ended conclusion, something he has always favored.
“Different people have different expectations of what they expect from a movie and what they want from a movie,” said Cronenberg. “Sometimes you just want a really neat little detective story that wraps everything up with the revelation of the killer. It could be Agatha Christie, but sometimes you want something that reflects life as it really is lived more, which is that it can be very confusing and gives you the unsettling sense that things just never do get resolved.”
Cronenberg noted the ending initially confused some critics out Cannes, where “The Shrouds” premiered last year. But he finds it especially satisfying in light of the conspiracy theory plot elements that start to mount as this film hurls toward its conclusion.
“Conspiracy never ends. Let’s face it, if you’re really a conspiracy theorist you don’t really want to have it end, you don’t really want a revelation of who the bad guys are,” said Cronenberg. “It’s exciting. It’s a creative thing. I mean, for a lot of people, conspiracy is something that empowers them. Makes them feel very special. They have knowledge that other people don’t have. They see through the facade that other people do not see through, and it really gives you meaning for things that, in essence, to me, are in fact meaningless.”
“The Shrouds” is playing in New York City and Los Angeles, and opens Nationwide April, 25.
To hear David Cronenberg’s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview below or on IndieWire’s YouTube page.
