David Cronenberg's Originally Pitched ‘The Shrouds' to Netflix, They Rejected It

Amidst all of the Cannes buzz, it shouldn’t be forgotten that David Cronenberg is set to premiere his latest film, “The Shrouds.” The film, which stars Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce, follows Cassel’s innovative businessman, and grieving widower, who builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

Back in 2019, Cronenberg mentioned to me that he had pitched a series to Netflix, he didn’t specify what it was, but it piqued the curiosity of many of his fans.

Well, it turns out, it was “The Shrouds.” Cronenberg went to Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles, they agreed to pay him to write two episodes of “The Shrouds”, but, ultimately, ended up rejecting the project. It’s now a film and set to premiere in Cannes competition.

Cronenberg tells Variety that, originally, Netflix was very responsive to his pitch and that it went as far as their ordering him to write two episodes for the series before they ended up scrapping the entire thing:

It was pre-pandemic. I went to L.A. to pitch it to Netflix. At that point it was a well-formed idea, but it wasn’t a script yet. The people I talked to there were very receptive, and Netflix gave me the OK to start writing what they call the prototype, which was the first episode of what was then going to be a series. And then they liked that enough to tell me to go ahead and write the second episode. After that they decided not to go forward for various reasons. […] They gave me a classic reason. They said, “It wasn’t what we fell in love with in the room,” which to me was a very Hollywood thing to say. I had been hoping that Netflix was not as Hollywood as Hollywood. I was baffled because I thought I was very specific with them, but I guess we disagreed on where we thought the series should go. What can you do?

Cronenberg, a maverick who has always flown by his own artistic free will, doesn’t adhere to the mainstream; he makes smart, urgent films about his deepest obsessions — parasite-filled, sexually taboo, and ultra-violent art. However, “The Shrouds” is said to be his most personal film, delving deeply into the 2017 loss of his wife, they were married for 43 years, and the grief that came with it.

I’m hearing good things about “The Shrouds,” which is said to be more accessible than Cronenberg’s last film, “Crimes of the Future,” which was more clinical and meditative in its approach. Cronenberg still hasn’t won a Palme d’Or and, given how weak this year’s competition has been, so far, maybe this is his year.