Legendary director David Cronenberg is in Reykjavik to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, and has been speaking about his long career, as well as those projects that fell by the wayside, including hit television show True Detective, which he turned down last year.
Many directors were approached to come on-board the second season, including Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly) and William Friedkin (The Exorcist). And while there’s been no official word on why they turned the opportunity down, Cronenberg has shed some light on why he passed on the project.
Speaking at the Reykjavik International Film Festival, the director of The Fly and Videodrome, said: “The heat is in TV…..Last year I was approached to direct the first episode of the second season of True Detective, I considered it but I thought that the script was bad, so I didn’t do it. In TV, the director is just a traffic cop, but on the other hand, it is work and there’s a lot of it.”
Justin Lin (Star Trek Beyond), John Crowley (Brooklyn), Daniel Attias (Homeland) were eventually entrusted with directorial duties through the second season, which has just finished its run on HBO and Sky Atalantic. Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly, David Morse and Vince Vaughn featured in the cast.
https://youtu.be/sbXoZXr2goI?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published October 2, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
