The “bizarre” movie David Cronenberg spent 10 years trying to make: “Very difficult to sell”
Earning the nickname ‘Master of Body Horror’ is no mean feat. David Cronenberg isn’t just one of the greatest horror directors of all time; he’s one of the most fascinating and creative filmmakers to ever come out of the United States.
Whether it’s exploding heads, insect hybrids, or Viggo Mortensen’s gorgeous face, everything he puts on screen is worth analysing. Given he’s built one of the largest and most devoted cult fanbases of any director ever, you best believe that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
A Cronenberg movie people can’t get enough of is 1988’s Dead Ringers. Based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, which in turn was loosely inspired by the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus, the movie stars Jeremy Irons as a pair of identical siblings.
The pair abuse their positions of power as high-flying doctors, which goes about as well as you would imagine. The movie was an instant critical hit, held up as one of the best of Cronenberg’s entire career. It spawned a TV spin-off in the 2020s and laid the foundation for one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
In a conversation with author and documentarian George Hickenlooper for his book Reel Conversations, Cronenberg spoke about how difficult it was to get Dead Ringers off the ground, and it turns out that people weren’t willing to fund a movie about identical twin gynaecologists who trick women into sleeping with both of them.
“The subject is very bizarre,” the director said. “When you don’t have a script, but just an idea, and you’re going to people for money to get to the position where you can have a script or write a script, you become dependent on two things: on the imaginations of the people you are talking to and upon your own ability as a storyteller. If one or both of those things is not working, then you don’t make a movie… It was just one of those projects which was very difficult to sell.”
Given its unorthodox source material, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that a number of financiers came aboard and subsequently left the project before it was completed. A number of writers and actors also came and went, including William Hurt, who didn’t like the idea of playing two roles, and Robert De Niro, who found the subject matter uneasy.
Ultimately, Cronenberg was forced to partially finance the film himself, and he also received a little unexpected help from Arnold Schwarzenegger, with Jeremy Irons’ agreeing to come on board giving the movie some much-needed star power, which helped finally get the picture over the line. After ten long years of working tirelessly to make Dead Ringers happen, all the pieces were finally in place. And then it bombed at the box office…
Honestly, that isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. Cronenberg couldn’t have expected a film this strange to make billions of dollars. The fact that it got made at all is enough. Although he probably wouldn’t have turned down a billion dollars if somebody offered it to him.
