It’s been seven years since David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” changed the TV landscape by blurring the line between television and cinema, but, more importantly, signaled the return of a true master. However, Lynch hasn’t directed anything since then.
It turns out, according to his long-time producing partner Sabrina Sutherland, that Lynch was about to shoot a new project, and then, sadly, the pandemic hit and it got scrapped. I’ll have more on that below, but first we need to set this story up for you.
In 2019, Lynch got back to work with a mysterious new project titled “Wisteria/Unrecorded Night". There was a rumor hinting that Lynch was partnering with Netflix for this one. Lynch veterans Naomi Watts and Laura Dern had even been spotted attending a meeting at Netflix headquarters with Lynch.
If that wasn’t enough to whet our appetites, then how about a casting note from The Girlfriend Experience, adding more intrigue to the puzzle, which stated the following: “The lead of the new David Lynch film requires tasteful nudity. Actress with dark hair in their mid to late 20s.”
Back in February, a poster on Reddit gave additional details about Lynch’s upcoming project, which was said to shoot in late spring, before the pandemic hit, under the working title of “Wisteria.” The rumor had Netflix greenlighting 13 hour-long episodes and a budget of $85 million. The mini-series may or may not have been a set of hour-long movies, it was never confirmed. A Production Weekly listing later noted that production was due to begin in May 2021.
The usually tight-lipped Lynch then revealed on his YouTube channel that he was going to shoot a “new movie”. And then, radio silence … May 2021 came and went, still no indication that anything was happening.
In a recent AMA, Sutherland is finally explaining what happened. Here’s what she had to say about “Unrecorded Night”:
Unrecorded Night was a non-Twin Peaks series that was going to shoot at Netflix but was cancelled when the pandemic hit. There’s always a chance we can pick it up again, […] we were in Pre-production and close to shooting.
So, Netflix scrapped it while it was in pre-production and ready to shoot. This is unbelievable. We could have had another Lynch-directed project, but the streaming giant nixed it. However, Sutherland is hopeful that “Unrecorded Night” will one day get made, she says it’s still on their minds.
The good news is that, according to Sutherland, David is in good health, and still has interest in doing more film work. He's just working on music and painting at the moment.