Lars Von Trier, a man who’s made a lot of suggestive comments at film festivals over the years, used this year’s Venice Film Festival to make an announcement. He’s returning to TV for the first time in twenty years for his next project, The House That Jack Built. Announced by his long-time producer Louise Vesth, she revealed the title while doing press for the director’s cut of Nymphomaniac. She didn’t let much slip, except that Von Trier is busy scribbling away this fall and hopes to shoot sometime in 2016:
“He has a really good idea which I cannot tell more about right now. He wants a huge cast and from what I heard, I’m sure that it will be something that you have never seen before and you will definitely never see again.”
Danish public TV production arm, DR, will join Vesth to help with production duties. Their most well-known projects have included the original version of The Killing and The Bridge. It sounds like a match made in heaven considering Von Trier’s allegiance to the morbid side of humanity.
Von Trier has established himself as some what of an iconoclastic filmmaker and he rarely abides by the rules. He would rather craft an honest piece of art that’d give your grandma a nose bleed than pump out garbage that millions would gladly eat up with a spoon. Director of the unofficially-titled “Depression Trilogy” (Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac), his cinematic output continues to challenge the norms. And involves a lot of nudity.
This will be his first step back into television since 1994’s The Kingdom. That eerie hospital drama, flecked with the supernatural was an international hit. It even landed its own U.S. remake, spearheaded by Stephen King, and rebranded Kingdom Hospital.
Another haunting jaunt on the small screen with Von Trier? We’re in.
What do you think, should VT stick to movies? Or did you dig The Kingdom, too? Let us know, and we’ll keep you posted on more details regarding The House That Jack Built as they arise.
