EXCLUSIVE: Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director David Lynch tells us he is hoping to find backers for his under-the-radar animated project Snootworld, even if Netflix recently “rejected” his “fairytale” pitch.
Screen legend Lynch has said little publicly about Snootworld until now and in recent months he has quietly tried to breathe life into the project by seeking out a financier.
He began working on the script two decades ago with former Tim Burton collaborator Caroline Thompson, writer of projects including The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands, as well as 1991 hit The Addams Family.
“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 us in a rare interview. “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.”
Lynch was philosophical about the reasons for that decision: “Snootworld is kind of an old fashioned story and 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.”
Thompson described the storyline to us as “wackadoo”: “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”.
Thompson, who last scripted 2018 Steve Carell-Robert Zemeckis movie Welcome To Marwen, wrote acts one and three of the Snootworld screenplay, while Lynch wrote act two.
Lynch told us he hadn’t decided yet whether he would direct (as well as produce and co-write) Snootworld, but the possibility remains open. He said he had harboured hopes his filmmaker daughter Jennifer (a regular director on American Horror Story) may take it on but that she has “so many things in the pipeline that she ultimately thought it would be better for me or someone else to direct it”.
Despite Netflix not biting, the screen legend still believes in Snootworld‘s potential: “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.”
Four-time Oscar nominee Lynch, now 78, hasn’t directed a feature in almost 20 years, since Inland Empire, but he returned to his iconic Twin Peaks franchise in 2017.
There is often idle speculation around this time that the Palme d’Or winner may be taking a secret project to the Cannes Film Festival, but Lynch told us he didn’t have anything lined up for the event.
Lynch was coy about which project may be his next or which is taking up most of his time, cryptically noting: “I can’t talk about those things right now.”
We have reached out to Netflix for comment.