David Cronenberg Breaks Down Cannes Walkouts, His New Film’s Sexuality, and Why Netflix Turns Him Down

World of Reel that it was indeed Stewart’s “Twilight” costar who first introduced them.Pattinson, 36, starred in two of Cronenberg’s movies — the 2012 thriller “Cosmopolis” and 2014’s “Maps to the Stars.”“It was Robert who actually introduced me to Kristen. They have developed beautifully, separately, as actors,” the Canadian filmmaker said.

After the “Twilight” movie series culminated in November 2012 with “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” co-stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson worked hard to leave their teen-romance roles behind. And they’ve been highly successful at it for the past ten years.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.The iconic director, who recently worked with Kristen Stewart on Crimes of the Future and had previously cast Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis, has opened up about working with both actors together.“It was Robert who actually introduced me to Kristen,” Cronenberg told World of Reel.“They have developed beautifully, separately, as actors. Making arthouse movies and successfully carrying that off. Kristen and I had a great time and Rob and I had a great time.”On both Twilight actors and a potential forthcoming project, Cronenberg added: “For me, yeah, I can definitely think of a movie, or idea, that would be great to have them both together.“I don’t want to get into it because it wouldn’t be my next movie, however, it might be problematic since fans might expect a certain kind of relationship and that would get in the way of creating new characters for them.

As women in the United States are seeing their rights to safe abortions, access to reproductive health services, and contraceptives slowly being stripped away by red state governors, a recent leak revealed the conservative majority Supreme Court may strike down Roe vs. Wade, ending legal abortion.

Cannes debut yesterday (May 23), during which a number of viewers reportedly walked out – some of them within the first five minutes.The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux as performance artists who grow and remove organs onstage before a live audience, and contains a number of gory scenes.According to IGN, the film’s opening scene, in which a young boy is killed by his mother, prompted the majority of walkouts, with another scene involving Seydoux and an open wound leading to many others.Despite this, however, Deadline reports that the film still received a six minute standing ovation after credits rolled.“I’m speechless, really — this is the first time I’ve seen this movie on a screen this big,” Cronenberg said in a brief speech, “I’m very touched by your response. I hope you’re not kidding, I hope you mean it.

At a press conference for his new film “Crimes of the Future” at the Cannes Film Festival, Canadian director David Cronenberg was asked about the film’s politics and the abortion debate in America.

In David Cronenberg’s latest genre twister, Crimes of the Future, Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux plays partners who are performance artists, engrossed in performing surgery (largely on the former) for public nightclub spectacle. They’re enthralled with the freedom they can take on each other’s bodies. All of this in a governing society that’s not too fond of it.

Director Léa Mysius expertly crafts a queer, witchy movie in her Directors’ Fortnite debut film, The Five Devils, which received a five-minute standing ovation at the screening I attended. Mysius takes concepts like identity, sexuality, and mysticism and creates an intricate genre film that’s part time travel, part drama, and all heart. 

David Cronenberg has unfinished business with the future, which is tricky, seeing as it already constitutes a significant slice of his past. His new film — titled “Crimes of the Future,” as in committed by rather than during that span of time — finds the master on the other side of his extended sojourn in high-minded literary adaptation, biopic quasi-prestige, and Tinseltown satire, back to playing the body-horror hits on which he made his name.

Just when his fans may have figured that David Cronenberg had called it a career (he’s now 79 and hadn’t made a feature since the misfired Maps to the Stars in 2014), along comes a film that only the Canadian maestro of the perverse could have created.

There’s a lot of weird fetishes in this world, which we won’t go into, but for David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, the new sex is surgery.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticMost filmmakers who want to unsettle you in a horror movie will reach for a familiar set of tools: slashers, demons, shock cuts, soundtracks that go boom! in the night. But in “Crimes of the Future,” the writer-director David Cronenberg is out to provoke and disturb us with something far more traumatic than mere monsters.Am I talking about the fact that in the distant future where the film is set, human beings grow mysterious new organs in their bodies? Or that having those organs removed through surgery has become, for a creepy rebel aesthete named Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), a species of performance art? Or that people no longer experience physical pain, and will therefore stand in the street late at night cutting each other for cheap thrills, as if they were shooting heroin in a back alley? Or that surgery itself, as someone puts it, has become “the new sex”? If you see “Crimes of the Future,” you’ll witness all of these outrages, and a few more besides.

“Crimes of the Future” will be David Cronenberg’s final film — never believe a director who says they’re quitting — but it definitely feels like a closing argument, one that both reaffirms the filmmaker’s favorite themes and stylistic choices while also reflecting a shift in his point of view.We’ve been here before with Cronenberg; his 1999 “Existenz” also had the feel of a greatest-hits collection. But for audiences starved for brash choices from one of the cinema’s boldest living provocateurs, even a rehash seems fresher than corporate-assembled, focus-group-approved content.Should this be the Canadian auteur’s final feature, he won’t be leaving on a high note: “Crimes of the Future” won’t be remembered alongside masterpieces like “Dead Ringers,” “The Fly,” “The Brood,” or “Crash.” Nonetheless, as a writer-director, Cronenberg continues to plumb his obsessions, both narrative and visual, and he brings enough energy and bravado to the mix to make this an oft-told story that he’s recounting as though for the first time.Borrowing the title (but little else) from one of his earliest films, “Crimes of the Future” takes place in a near-future dystopia where pain has become a thing of the past and surgery is both a hot trend and the source of a new brand of performance art.

Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.  The French actress, 36, looked stunning in a black, blue and white striped short sleeved T-shirt which she paired with the black trousers.  The star added some height to her frame in a pair of towering black pointed toe heels as she attended the event in the Campari Lounge at the Palais des Festivals.

Nobody does body horror better than David Cronenberg. And in his first movie since 2014’s “Maps To The Stars,” it looks like Cronenberg returns to what he does best: a visceral, extreme take on humanity as we careen into the future.

Ron Howard’s first animated feature, The Shrinking Of Treehorn, has been acquired by Netflix, Deadline can confirm.

This month will see the return of beloved genre auteur David Cronenberg (“Crash,” “Naked Lunch”) to the Cannes Film Festival with his anticipated body horror pic “Crimes of The Future,” which boasts an impressive cast that includes Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart. During a lengthy interview with Variety, the Canadian filmmaker talked about the studio offers he passed on during the 1980s that included a story about an unnamed Lucasfilm executive/representative hanging upon him when they reached out to him about directing “Star Wars: Return of The Jedi” after Cronenberg mentioned he only directs his own material.

EXCLUSIVE: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry is readying his next project, which will be on sale in the Cannes market with French seller Kinology.

After an eight-year hiatus from the screen, NEON (“Parasite“) is releasing David Cronenberg‘s latest body horror film, “Crimes of The Future” next month. Cronenberg has revealed in a new interview with Variety that the movie, starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart, was originally offered to streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon but they didn’t bite.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentGeorge MacKay (“1917”) is set to headline alongside Lea Seydoux (“Crimes of the Future”) in “The Beast,” a decade-spanning dystopian romance thriller directed by Bertrand Bonello (“Saint Laurent”).Kinology (“Annette”) is handling international sales on “The Beast,” which will shoot in French and English and will start filming in August.Taking place between Paris and California, “The Beast” is set in the near future where emotions have become a threat. Seydoux stars as Gabrielle, a woman who has finally decided to purify her DNA in a machine that will immerse her in her past lives and rid her of any strong feelings.