David Cronenberg, master of the bizarre and macabre, is set to direct a sci-fi thriller/dark comedy project. Deadline reports that Media Rights Capital has just acquired the rights to the novel “As She Climbed Across the Table,” part of a package deal that has the iconic filmmaker attached to direct.
“As She Climbed Across the Table” is a novel by Jonathan Lethem about a bizarre love triangle between a physicist, her academic boyfriend, and a black hole. That’s right, a black hole. The story surrounds a particle physicist who creates a black hole as she tries to discover the origins of the universe. She dumps her professor boyfriend to spend all her time with the blackhole, which she calls Lack. But he’s not going quietly, and he decides to confront his rival even if it means going down a cosmic rabbit hole.
This sounds like some great material for Cronenberg’s particular style, a wonderfully bizarre and twisted love story that has both thriller and dark comedy elements. Cronenberg is perhaps best known for his weird sci-fi horrors like The Fly and Scanners, as well as some bleak, violent dramas like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. He’s also got an erotic psycho drama about to hit theaters called A Dangerous Method, which stars long-time collaborator Viggo Mortensen.
The package deal by Media Rights has Cronenberg helming the project and Bruce Wagner writing the script. Cronenberg and Wagner have teamed up before, as Cronenberg acted as executive producer on Wagner’s own novel-adaptation I’m Losing You.
No word yet on which studio will be housing the project, but it looks like something tailor-made for Cronenberg. And the story itself sounds so outside-the-box freaky that it makes me want to read the novel before the movie comes out.
What do you think? Looking forward to this one?
