There’s no denying that director David Cronenberg is a wholly original filmmaker, but his signature style doesn’t always translate to box office success.  As such, it came as quite a pleasant surprise recently when the director was interested in making both a sequel to his 2007 crime drama Eastern Promises and a remake of his seminal 1986 sci-fi classic The Fly.  Just as both projects seemed to be on track, Cronenberg abruptly broke the news that neither was going to happen because the respective studios decided they weren’t interested in making the films.  Though Eastern Promises 2 and Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly may never come to fruition, the filmmaker recently provided a few details regarding what we would have seen if the projects had made it to production.  Hit the jump for more.

Speaking with The Playlist, Cronenberg said that he would’ve loved to see Viggo Mortensen’s Nikolia character return to Russia in the Eastern Promises follow-up:

"We would see Nikolai go to Russia and there would be Russian elements and so on and so on. And [original screenwriter] Steve Knight wrote a lovely script."

Sadly, Focus Features did not share Cronenberg’s enthusiasm for the project:

"Focus Features couldn't agree on a budget, basically. I thought it was a very ambitious script and I wanted to do it properly and they really felt the financial restraints of the world in general. It was a really budget disagreement. As far as I'm concerned I'm not involved anymore."

As for Cronenberg’s The Fly redo, he wasn’t as forthcoming with story details but he did talk a bit about its relation to his original film:

"It wasn't really a remake, it was more of a sequel or a sidebar. It was a meditation on fly-ness. None of the same characters or anything and, of course, with an understanding of modern technology. It was something I was very pleased with and it was a disappointment not to get it made."

The director added that budget disagreements with Fox also killed The Fly.  Hopefully one or both of these projects will come to fruition someday, but for now it’s interesting to hear what Cronenberg had planned.

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