While The Substance brings the body horror genre back to the forefront, one of David Cronenberg's classics is about to be remade.
As the upcoming release of his film states The Shrouds, David Cronenberg continues to develop his filmography towards new horizonswhile keeping in mind the relationship with death and the body that has always punctuated his cinema.
Some criticize the director for his more openly “auteurizing” turn (for lack of a better term) during the 2000s, far from his debut in the exploitation B series transcended by its thematic richness. It must be said that Cronenberg perhaps drew from it some of his most identified masterpieces, like The Fly with Jeff Goldblum, undoubtedly the model of body horror, a subgenre to which Cronenberg gave its nobility. Without much surprise (but with a certain weariness), Hollywood decided to plunder the corpse.
Shit fly or project that hits the mark?
According to Deadline, a remake of The Fly would be in development by 20th Century Studios. We could of course say that the notion of remake has its limits, since The Fly is already at the origin of a reinvention of the film The Black Fly by Kurt Neumann, itself adapted from a short story by George Langelaan.
We should therefore rather talk about rehabilitation, entrusted to director Nikyatu Jusu. The young author was spotted for the strength of her short films African Booty Scratcher et Suicide By Sunlightas well as for his horrific feature film Nanny (available in France on Amazon Prime Video), won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Hailed for her portrayal of complex African-American characters (particularly on the female side), the director notably received the support of Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope), who entrusted him with a sequel project to George Romero's classic through his company Monkeypaw: Night of the Living Dead.
We may be annoyed by these eternal reinventions of seminal works of the genre, but in any case, Nikyatu Jusu is currently very busy. If his project around Night of the Living Dead hasn't given any news for a long time, Deadline states that The Fly is well under construction. Jusu will write the film herself, in addition to directing it, and if we wanted to be optimistic, we could hope for a real modern bias, equivalent to what Nia DaCosta had proposed with Candyman.
Besides, Deadline clarified that this version of The Fly would not strictly speaking be a readaptation of the story, but that the film would take place in the universe of Cronenberg's film, to tell something else. Still according to the media, the project would have accelerated given the renewed public interest in body horrornotably with the success in the United States of The Substance by Coralie Fargeat. The circle seems to have come full circle, as the French director takes her inspiration from David Cronenberg. To discover the madness of the feature film directed by Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, just head into theaters from November 6.
