Having directed only ten feature films across his 50-plus years in the industry, David Lynch has shown himself to be a very selective director. It’s fair to say that he only works on projects he’s passionate about, regardless of how much money is on the table. The fact that he turned down a Star Wars film is proof enough of this. At the same time, there have been films he wanted to make but couldn’t - some of which have completed screenplays that never made it to production.
For this list, we want to fantasize about what these and other projects could have become. Had Lynch helmed the films below, the results would’ve been electric, to say the least. Whether or not Lynch has expressed interest in them, they square with the eccentric director’s wide-ranging fascinations. From Marilyn Monroe biopics to superhero movies, here are six films we wish David Lynch had helmed.
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6 Elvis
Warner Bros. Pictures
Lynch’s interest in celebrity figures like Marilyn Monroe, as well as his love of Americana, would make him a stellar choice to direct a movie about Elvis Presley. Lynch lives and breathes 1950s culture, and Elvis is the decade’s fullest expression. Baz Luhrmann did an admirable job recreating the major events of Elvis’s life, but it would be equally interesting to see a version less bound to historical accuracy. We imagine that Lynch would make the story his own, and do so in ways that only he can. Plus, he’s already explored a bit of Elvis in his movies, as he directed Nicolas Cage performing a full cover of “Love Me” for Wild at Heart.
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5 The Tragedy of Macbeth
Apple Studios
If this seems like an odd pick, hear us out. Shakespeare’s immortal dramas have always provided opportunities for great directors (and great actors) to cut their teeth. And few stories are as renowned as Macbeth. We have Orson Welles’s version, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, and, more recently, Joel Coen’s take. But we wish that we could see David Lynch re-imagine this classic tale of greed, fate, and power. There’s room for experimentation here: the setting and time period can be altered; the cast can be made up of just about anyone, and Shakespeare’s language can be modernized or changed entirely. In the end, Lynch’s Macbeth might hardly resemble the original, but that would make it all the more interesting.
4 Blonde
Netflix
Here’s one that wasn’t all that far from happening. Though Lynch was never going to direct Joyce Carol Oates’s retelling of the Marilyn Monroe story (which Blonde is based on), he has expressed a long-running interest in the iconic star. The character of Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks was actually inspired by Monroe’s tragic and troubled life. Moreover, Lynch and collaborator Mark Frost once worked on a Monroe project based on Goddess, a biography of the star by Anthony Summer (more on this from Harper’s Bazaar). Sadly, we may never see this project, Venus Descending, brought to life.
3 The Trial
Astor Pictures Corporation
Orson Welles’s 1962 adaptation of Frank Kafka’s The Trial is fantastic. So while we wouldn’t want to see it replaced, we do wish Lynch had been able to try his hand at bringing Kafka to the silver screen. In fact, Senses of Cinema reports that Lynch has long been trying to adapt Kafka’s Metamorphosis, going so far as to write a script. While Lynch’s vision of Gregor Samsa, the man-turned-beetle, would be something to see, we think he’d do equally well with The Trial. It’s a maddeningly surreal text, one whose form and content seem perfectly suited to Lynch’s directorial quirks.
2 The Batman
It’s no great stretch to say that David Lynch will never direct a comic book movie, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to imagine the possibility. Noteworthy directors taking the reins of the Batman franchise is nothing new: we’ve seen Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan put their idiosyncratic spins on the Caped Crusader. Perhaps Burton’s madhouse Batman duology comes closest to what a Lynchian version might look like — although we think Lynch’s would be even stranger. In his hands, villains like the Scarecrow, the Riddler, or the Joker would become frightening beyond belief.
1 Return of the Jedi
Lucasfilm
This one came close to actually happening. Sometime in the early ‘80s, David Lynch was tapped by George Lucas himself to direct Return of the Jedi. Despite having little interest in the project, Lynch agreed to meet with Lucas, although the project did fall through. According to Far Out Magazine, Lynch recalls telling his lawyer that he wouldn’t be doing Star Wars, to which his lawyer responded: “You just lost, I don’t know how many millions of dollars.” Of course, money isn’t everything, but we wish we could have experienced Lynch’s surrealist version of Return of the Jedi. If his adaptation of Dune is any indication, it would have been quite a strange thing indeed.
