These films that David Lynch didn’t have time to make

In fifty years of career, the American director has only made 10 films. In recent years, his projects have all failed.

Obviously, there was Twin Peaks: The Returnthe phenomenon series of 2017. But since Inland EmpireEdit in 2006, with Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons, no new film. At the time of his death on January 16, 2025, David Lynch hadn’t made a film for 20 years!

He didn’t do anything either. In recent years, the director has dabbled in all the arts. He tried his hand at a few short films artsy as The Mystery of the Seeing Hand (2020). He produced The Other Me by Giga Agladz (2022). He made the music video “Sublime Eternal Love” by singer Chrystabell (2024). He gave his voice for the animated series Robot Chicken. He even made an appearance as John Ford in The Fabelmans by Steven Spielberg (2022). But no new feature film came to fruition. And it’s not for lack of trying.

Snootworld

Written twenty years ago, with the author Caroline Thompson (to whom we owe in particular the scripts of Funeral wedding And Edward Scissorhands), this feature film could have marked the first steps of David Lynch in the world of animation. The film tried to get produced by Netflix. But it didn’t work. “I don’t know when I started thinking about Snoots, but I was making these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge. I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script. Just recently, I I thought someone might be interested in supporting this project. I pitched it to Netflix but they rejected it. he said last year. In the process, he confided that his Snootworld was a more “ old fashioned » than most modern animated films, making it a harder sell to studios. He had also hoped to pass the torch to his daughter, but she preferred to decline. Maybe Jennifer Lynch will want to stick to it from now on, to make his father’s dream come true.

Antelope Don’t Run No More

In his memoir published in 2018, “Room to Dream”, the director revealed having written this film mixing elements of the mythology of Inland EmpireEdit and of Mulholland Drive. A summary of the scenario explains that it was a “narrative fantasy incorporating aliens, talking animals and a beleaguered musician named Pinky.” Obviously a great script, if those who have read it are to be believed. But in 2024, diagnosed with emphysema, he announced that he would not be able to carry out the project for the moment.

Unrecorded Night

The hottest project carried by David Lynchin recent years, it is Unrecorded Night (working title), a series unrelated to Twin Peaks which was to be filmed for Netflix but was canceled due to the pandemic. In September 2020, while casting was underway, Lynch confided in an interview that the COVID-19 pandemic had put this project on hold, for which he was to write and direct the 13 episodes with a budget of $85 million. Sabrina S. Sutherland was to be the producer. A cinematographer, Peter Demingwas also on board. Production was scheduled to begin in May 2021 at Calvert Studios in Los Angeles. But everything was stopped due to confinement. And in 2024, Sutherland confirmed that Netflix had finally given up.