Cronenberg Continues his Quest to the Mainstream with a Fly Remake

I guess David Cronenberg is getting a little soft in his old age. Or at least, he’s not as kooky and fiery as he once was, because the Canadian director is not-so slowly and very surely moving towards the mainstream with a number of upcoming projects. He’s already got the big-budget Hollywood thriller “The Maltarese Circle” in the wings, and he’s already talking about an “Eastern Promises” sequel, and now — a remake of his 1986 movie “The Fly”, which he will return to write and possibly direct.

THR’s Risky Biz Blog says that Cronenberg will re-team with FOX, the original producers on the original, for the remake despite having previously said that he wasn’t interested in revisiting Seth Brundle and his teleportation accident.

In the original, Jeff Goldblum played Brundle, one of those wacky but brilliant scientists whose experiment in teleportation goes awry when, during an experiment on himself, he is merged with a wayward fly. Gradually, Brundle begins to transform into a human-fly hybrid, much to the chagrin of his reporter girlfriend Veronica (played by Geena Davis). As with most early Cronenberg genre movies, the film was icky and queasy, and I can’t see how today’s modern effects will improve upon that. The movie never really depended on the special effects; it was always more than its budget.

A sequel was made a few years after the original starring Eric Stolz and Daphne Zuniga, with Stolz playing the offspring of Brundle and Veronica, now in Government custody. It didn’t fare very well, but any movie where Zuniga gets a starring role is cool by me. I mean, her name is Zuniga. That’s just fun to say out loud. Try it. “Zuniga!”