David Cronenberg Wrote A Semi-Sequel To 'The Fly,' Not A Remake

Two years ago, in September 2009, we heard the fairly surprising news that David Cronenberg might direct a remake of the 1986 film The Fly for Fox. Thing is, that '86 film (which we celebrated not long ago) was also a remake, and also directed by Cronenberg. And if the idea of Cronenberg directing a remake of his own remake was pretty wild, that's because the story wasn't exactly correct.

Fox may have been thinking of making a new Fly, and the idea may have been to do something like what Universal has done with the prequel to the '82 The Thing, with this year's release also called The Thing. Because now Cronenberg says what he wrote was a semi-sequel to his great '86 film.

Speaking to STYD, Cronenberg said

'The Fly' is not exactly a remake, it's sort of a sequel, kinda. Yeah, that was a thing. I've written a script of that, and I don't know if that's going to really happen, but that has to do with Fox.

That doesn't sound very encouraging — how crazy that a studio has a script in the vault by a master filmmaker who is willing to revisit one of his most recognizable films. Guess Fox decided to pull all its chips on Ridley Scott and Prometheus instead. That makes a sort of sense, as Prometheus is probably a lot more easily marketable than anything Cronenberg would make for Fox at this point. But I'd love to read that Fly script.

The director also addressed the possibility of a sequel to Eastern Promises, which is something that has been mentioned off and on for a couple years:

That is also possible. Steve Knight wrote an 'Eastern Promises 2,' he's writing a second draft of that. Focus are interested in it, and we'll see.