10 David Lynch Projects That Never Got Made

The film director David Lynch is known for his surreal and dream-like style and work that explores themes of alienation, the subconscious, and the darkness hidden just below the surface of everyday society. While David Lynch managed to produce some of the weirdest films and the most complex narrative works ever to grace a cinema screen, there are just as many endeavors of his that never got off the ground. The list of unrealized David Lynch projects is a varied catalog that includes fully formed unproduced scripts, works that were adapted and transformed into something new, and even a plan to enter the world of video games.

With unmade projects dating back to before his very first feature film, Eraserhead, audiences could have been treated to a surrealist debut adaptation of one of his own paintings. While the David Lynch version of Frank Herbert’s Dune did not connect with audiences upon its release, there was a point where he was in the throes of writing a sequel and on his way to becoming the brain behind a whole sci-fi franchise. Lynch has toyed with several book adaptations, an unusual animal-based absurdist comedy, and even a script involving space-monkeys that he has been predictably tight-lipped about.

10 Gardenback

A non-linear exploration of lust, based on a painting

Before making his directional debut feature Eraserhead, David Lynch penned the script for Gardenback. This was a surreal, non-linear, 45-minute film, based on a painting of Lynch’s that showed a hunched figure with vegetation growing out of its back. The film reportedly dealt with themes of adultery and featured a growing insect that represented a man’s lust for his neighbor. Lynch submitted the script to the American Film Institute, but it was rejected for being too long and having such an abstract concept.

9 The Metamorphosis

David Lynch’s surreal style goes well with the alienation themes of Franz Kafka

The films of David Lynch are often associated with Bohemian writer Franz Kafka. Both of their work deals with the absurd and surreal, explorations of the subconscious, utilize unconventional storytelling techniques, and are often categorized by a sense of unease. It only makes sense then that Lynch adapted Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis for the screen in the 1980s. However, the project never materialized because Lynch recognized that bringing his vision of the protagonist’s transformation into an insect to life would have been too costly in the pre-CGI era.

8 Dune Messiah

The Dune sequel that was never green lit

While today David Lynch has famously disowned his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the film’s failure was not always so certain, and Lynch had even been working on a sequel titled Dune Messiah. Lynch stated he had over half the script completed when he was informed it would not be green lit. “I was really getting into Dune II. I wrote about half the script, maybe more, and I was really getting excited about it. It was much tighter, a better story,” he said (via David Breskin). While a sequel to his original is unlikely, in recent years Lynch has expressed interest in reworking his version of Dune.

7 Manhunter

David Lynch’s take on Hannibal Lector

After making Blue Velvet, David Lynch briefly developed an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. Planned with Italian American producer Dino De Laurentiis, who produced early Federico Fellini films such as La Strada, Lynch ultimately decided to drop the project as he did not want to work on major studio movies anymore. The novel was later adapted by Michael Mann as Manhunter in 1986 to mixed reviews. It was not until Harris’ sequel novel, The Silence of the Lambs, was adapted in 1991, that Harris’ work and in particular his character of Dr. Hannibal Lector would receive widespread acclaim in the world of film.

6 Twin peaks Audrey Horne spin-off

Became the geneisis of Mulholland Drive

During the filming of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s TV series Twin Peaks, there were plans for a spin-off film focusing on the character of Audrey Horne in California. Sherilyn Fenn, who portrayed Audrey, said in 2014 that the spin-off would have featured an older version of her character and at the time she found the idea of a spin-off weird as, at the time, characters from TV shows rarely made the switch to movies (via AV Club). While the spin-off movie was never produced, aspects of the planned story served as inspiration for Lynch’s later film Mulholland Drive.

5 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me sequels

Twin Peaks could have been a movie trilogy

Prior to the release of the Twin Peaks prequel movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, David Lynch had planned two sequel films that would continue the story of the TV series. According to David Hughes’ book The Complete Lynch, Lynch originally secured a $75 million deal with the French company Ciby 2000 for a Twin Peaks trilogy, but these plans were scrapped after the bad reception and box office bomb of Fire Walk With Me. Lynch would once again revisit the world of Twin Peaks with a critically acclaimed third season subtitled The Return in 2017.

4 Dream of the Bovine

The story of three guys, who used to be cows

Dream of the Bovine was an absurd comedy script that David Lynch co-wrote with Twin Peaks writer Robert Engles. The film was about three guys who used to be cows, trying to take charge of their lives. The proposed movie was set in Paris in the year 1911 and Lynch planned to shoot it entirely in black and white. Harry Dean Stanton was cast as the star and Lynch reportedly wanted Marlon Brando to co-star. Brando did not take the role and Lynch said, in his part-memoir part-biography book Room to Dream, that Brando told him the script was “pretentious bullshit.”

3 Mulholland Drive TV show

The movie was a reworking of a television pilot

Perhaps David Lynch’s most acclaimed film, Mulholland Drive topped a BBC poll of the best movies made since the year 2000. However, the film was originally conceived as a TV series and the final project was a reworking of a 90-minute television pilot intended for ABC. When television executives rejected the pilot, Lynch was forced to give his open-ended story an ending, and considering the experimental and surrealist style of filmmaking Lynch is known for, the story is open to interpretation. Bringing together themes of dreams and reality, a satirical love letter to classic Hollywood, and a strange exploration of romance and sexuality, Mulholland Drive is a classic Lynch head-scratcher.

2 Woodcutters from the Fiery Ships

David Lynch nearly made his own video game

In 1998, David Lynch was interested in getting involved in the rapidly expanding world of video games. Impressed by Japanese company Synergy Interactive and being a fan of their previous game Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure, it was announced Lynch was developing a game called Woodcutters from the Fiery Ships with the company. The mystery game involved being taken away by woodcutters and there are very few details available, except that Lynch would have had full creative control. The game was canceled in 1999, reportedly due to its “conundrum” concept being boring to gamers (via The City of Absurdity).

1 Antelope Don’t Run No More

A script that could not secure funding

Antelope Don’t Run No More was a script written by David Lynch in 2010. It was set in Los Angeles and featured “space aliens, talking animals, and a beleaguered musician named Pinky”, according to Lynch’s book Room to Dream. Written in 2010, Lynch was unable to secure funding for the movie and, despite previous speculation he was making it for Netflix, the film never materialized. Instead, Lynch made his return to television with a revival series of Twin Peaks and in 2021 it was announced he was working on a Netflix show with working titles Wisteria and Unrecorded Night that has yet to be released.

Sources: David Breskin, AV Club, The City of Absurdity