Movies
Beautiful Photography From Inside TIFF’s ‘The Cronenberg Project’ In Toronto!
Jonny Bunning has just pointed us to a very high quality photo gallery(!) that takes you in The Cronenberg Project, a multi-platform celebration of the work of one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, David Cronenberg.
Still running through January 19, 2014, the core component of The Cronenberg Project is a comprehensive film exhibition titled David Cronenberg: Evolution, curated by Handling and Cowan. The exhibition, which will be presented at TIFF Bell Lightbox in the HSBC Gallery, explores the world of David Cronenberg by tracing his development and progression as a filmmaker through the themes of physical and psychological transformation that define his cinema; from telepaths and scientists to television producers and twin doctors. This also marks the first major original exhibition curated and launched by TIFF that will tour internationally with locations to be announced at a later date.
The Cronenberg Project also includes an experiential virtual museum called David Cronenberg: Virtual Exhibition; a full retrospective of Cronenberg’s films with multiple newly struck 35mm prints and new digital restorations; an interactive digital experience titled Body/Mind/Change, a Lance Weiler project and co-production with TIFF and CFC Media Lab; an art exhibition curated by Noah Cowan and David Liss titled David Cronenberg: Transformation, presented in partnership with the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MOCCA); and two original publications celebrating the film and art exhibitions. David Cronenberg: Transformation will run from September 5 to December 29, 2013 at MOCCA, with the opening reception taking place on September 4 just in time for the Toronto International Film Festival.
Highlights of David Cronenberg: Evolution include key pieces and materials from Cronenberg’s extensive filmography—including costumes, props, photographs, audio-visual elements, art work and set-design drawings—such as the helmet from Videodrome (1983), the game consoles from eXistenZ (1999), the surgical tools from Dead Ringers (1988), the leg braces from Crash (1996), the typewriters from Naked Lunch (1991), and the pod from The Fly (1986).
David Cronenberg: Virtual Exhibition, launching online and in the CIBC Gallery on November 1, explores Cronenberg’s films through new scholarship and artistic explorations, including essays, academic writing, an interactive map and timeline, and a selection of rare behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Cronenberg’s past and present collaborators. A natural extension of TIFF’s Higher Learning programming and Digital Resource Hub, David Cronenberg: Virtual Exhibition looks to enhance educational opportunities within the academic community and the public at large to stimulate ongoing research in Cronenberg’s filmography.
David Cronenberg: Transformation at MOCCA will feature six new, TIFF-commissioned artworks from leading Canadian and international contemporary artists who share Cronenberg’s inspirations from literature and philosophy—writers such as McLuhan, Burroughs and Ballard—and his fascination with biological horror, the human psyche and the merging of humans and media. Artists featured: Candice Breitz, James Coupe, Marcel Dzama, Jeremy Shaw, Jamie Shovlin and Laurel Woodcock.
Body/Mind/Change, a digital extension of David Cronenberg: Evolution, immerses users/audiences in a “Cronenbergian” world across three platforms—online, mobile, and real life—through an “artificial intelligence recommendation engine” called POD (Personal On-Demand). Users can sign up now at www.bodymindchange.ca to register for a POD and enter into this story-world experience, which will launch in October and culminate with a physical hub inside the CIBC Canadian Film Gallery. Body/Mind/Change provides the opportunity for the audience to become a part of the exhibition and to explore the dark landscape where Cronenberg’s stories live.
Evolution, the opening celebration for the exhibition David Cronenberg: Evolution, will take over TIFF Bell Lightbox for the evening of Wednesday, October 30, featuring live entertainment, interactive art installations, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Tickets are now on sale at tiff.net/cronenbergparty, proceeds will support annual film programming at TIFF along with education and community initiatives.
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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