David Cronenberg TV Series In the Works, Fulfilling the Prophecy of ‘Videodrome’

David Cronenberg, master of body horror and movies that make you feel icky and also kind of horny, is working on a TV series. The filmmaker was tight-lipped on what the series will be about, but you can bet it’ll probably be weird and also amazing. More on the David Cronenberg TV series below.

“The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.”

So says Dr. Brian O’Blivion in David Cronenberg’s 1983 masterpiece Videodrome, a film quite literally about television warping the minds of individuals addicted to its pervasive, constant glow. In an instance of life imitating art, Cronenberg is now developing a TV show of his own. The filmmaker has helmed episodes of TV before, but this will be the first show he’s actively developed. At one point, Cronenberg was offered the chance to helm the second season of True Detective, but turned it down because he didn’t care for the script.

So what’s this new David Cronenberg TV series about? The director isn’t telling. During a panel at the Venice Film Festival (via Variety), Cronenberg simply said the series was in the works, but that he couldn’t “talk about it yet.” Cronenberg went on to say that he’s not as caught up in the TV vs. Film dilemma that many other filmmakers of his generation often obsess over.

Other old-school filmmakers still tend to look down on TV as a medium, feeling like it can never compete with the big screen experience of film. Cronenberg, in contrast, says “today TV screens are getting bigger and bigger and therefore the difference between theatre and domestic viewing has become really flimsy…The rule used to be that closeup shots were only done for TV, and not for movies. But today that’s no longer the case.”

I’m a huge fan of (most of) Cronenberg’s films, so I’m very excited to see how this potential TV series turns out. The director has shied away from his previous horror-centric output in recent years, and I sincerely hope whatever this series is, it has a horror element. I also hope it doesn’t make us all go insane like the bootleg TV signal in Videodrome, but beggars can’t be choosers.

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