Director David Lynch Co-Wrote A Bonkers Animated Film, But Netflix Turned Him Down
Once upon a time, Netflix was in the business of auteur-driven animation, allowing filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro work on his dream project "Pinocchio," giving Henry Selick his first movie in 13 years after Disney killed his previous project, letting Charlie Kaufman deliver an existential kids' animated movie in "Orion and the Dark," and rescuing "Nimona" after Disney pulled the plug. The streamer has partnered with the likes of Glen Keane, Sergio Pablos, Richard Linklater, Chris Williams, Craig McCracken, and Jorge R. Gutiérrez, but a name that won't join this list anytime soon is legendary filmmaker David Lynch.
Speaking with Deadline, Lynch offered an update on his long-gestating animated movie "Snootworld," which he's been teasing since at least 2009. Lynch co-wrote the script for his animated feature debut with Caroline Thompson ("The Nightmare Before Christmas"), with Lynch penning the second of the film's three acts.
"I like this story. It's something that children and adults can both appreciate," Lynch said. "I've never really done a straight animation but with computers today it's possible to do some spectacular things." The filmmaker hasn't directed anything since 2017's "Twin Peaks: The Return," and hasn't made a feature film since "Inland Empire" in 2006, which is yet another reason to be excited about "Snootworld." Sadly, it seems the film will not come to be, at least not on Netflix.
According to Lynch, Netflix "rejected" the project, with the director saying that "old fashioned fairytales are considered groaners." That means not only was Lynch working on an animated movie, but he was making an old-fashioned fairytale animated movie, which is already a wild sentence to read. This is reminiscent of how George Lucas' final film before retirement was an animated jukebox musical fairytale inspired by William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Lynch's fairy tale
"I don't know when I started thinking about Snoots but I'd do these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge," Lynch told Deadline. "I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script. Just recently I thought someone might be interested in getting behind this so I presented it to Netflix in the last few months but they rejected it."
Leave it to Lynch to accurately paint a picture of the problem with most big studio animated features today while making us salivate at the thought of his animated fairytale. As he described it, "'Snootworld' is kind of an old fashioned story and animation today is more about surface jokes ... Apparently people don't want to see [fairytales]. It's a different world now and it's easier to say no than to say yes."
The golden age of Netflix animation seems to be over, sadly. After an exciting start, with a focus on creator-driven titles, the streamer (much like the rest of Hollywood) has gone through a restructuring, cutting a third of the company's animation division (via CartoonBrew). Is there no space for Lynch's weird fairytale at Netflix? Unfortunately, given David Zaslav's anti-animation crusade and DreamWorks outsourcing its animation, it's hard to think of another studio that can give "Snootworld" a home.