David Lynch has been making his weird little movies for decades now, but not everyone is on board with his ambitious projects. In a rare interview with Deadline (Lynch prefers to address the world via his all-caps YouTube videos), Lynch confirmed that he has been working on a new project for over two decades, and it might finally be coming to life.
Lynch penned an animated feature called Snootworld with Tim Burton collaborator Caroline Thompson, though he revealed that Netflix “rejected” his ambitious pitch. It wasn’t revealed why, but Netflix was probably trying to make some room for its new Suits empire.
“I don’t know when I started thinking about Snoots but I’d do these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge,” Lynch told Deadline. “I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script. Just recently I thought someone might be interested in getting behind this so I presented it to Netflix in the last few months but they rejected it,” he confirmed. Perhaps he should try Shudder, where the real fun is.
Snootworld is “an old-fashioned story” which is why Lynch believes Netflix didn’t pick it up. “Animation today is more about surface jokes. Old-fashioned fairytales are considered groaners: apparently, people don’t want to see them. It’s a different world now and it’s easier to say no than to say yes,” he explained. This is why we have so many Paw Patrol movies and yet there’s only one Marcel The Shell.
What’s not to love about Snootworld? Thompson described the storyline to us as “wackadoo” which is a common theme in Lynch’s filmography. “It takes my breath away how wacky it is. The Snoots are these tiny creatures who have a ritual transition at aged eight at which time they get tinier and they’re sent away for a year so they are protected. The world goes into chaos when the Snoot hero of the story disappears into the carpet and his family can’t find him and he enters a crazy, magnificent world,” she added.
For now, Lynch is confident that the Snoot story will end. up somewhere. “I like this story. It’s something that children and adults can both appreciate…I’ve never really done a straight animation but with computers today it’s possible to do some spectacular things.”
Finally, Lynch was asked if he had any other projects on deck, to which he responded, “I can’t talk about those things right now.” There is still hope he will make a cameo in Dune: Part Three! Just imagine the intense bond between David, the real-life Willy Wonka of movies, and Timothee, a fake Willy Wonka. The world would stop.