It was a long eight year wait between Brandon Cronenberg’s directorial debut Antiviral and his follow-up, Possessor, in 2020. But it nearly wasn’t that way. Back in 2017, Cronenberg planned to direct the sci-fi epic Dragon, only to have the project quietly delayed for unknown reasons. Well, following Cronenberg’s latest film, 2023’s awesome Infinity Pool, he’s now ready to give Dragon another go.
Telefilm Canada has announced funding for Cronenberg’s next movie, Dragon. I’m going to guess the reason he didn’t make it before was due to the budget he’d need and couldn’t have demanded so early in his career. But he’s a proven commodity now and can get more resources to see it through.
Here’s how the film was previously described, with the caveat that Cronenberg may have changed some things: Set in the near future, “Dragon” envisions a society radically changed as a result of discovering ancient organic lifeforms drifting through the cosmos, whose alien biochemistry has been processed to create a hugely profitable drug that acts as an “opiate of the masses.” The film follows a captain and her crew as they hunt these “dragons” in deep space, seeking to secure a comfortable future.
Good news all around. Cronenberg gets to put a long-developing project into motion, and we don’t have to wait a decade for his next movie. More on this as it becomes available.
