David Lynch's quirky Netflix short is a reminder of what could have been

Recently, the world received some rather tragic news. David Lynch, the great filmmaker behind “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” has died at the age of 78.. Part of what makes this so sad is that Lynch hasn't had any major projects in recent years, with 2017's Twin Peaks: The Return serving as the most significant entry in his later filmography. In 2020, the short films “What Did Jack Do?”

Netflix released in January 2020.What Did Jack Do?” is a 17-minute short in which a detective interrogates a monkey. The detective is played by Lynch, the monkey is a real monkey, and the whole thing is as delightfully weird as it sounds. All this takes place in a closed railway station, shot in black and white. It seems true to the artist that Lynch was. However, it was a test of sorts for a larger partnership between Lynch and Netflix that would not materialize.

Around this time, the entire industry became obsessed with pouring huge resources into streaming as the future of Hollywood. Disney+ had just launched and Netflix wanted to stay ahead of the pack. So their checkbook was wide open. At one point, they almost financed a long-running animation project developed by Lynch and screenwriter Carolyn Thompson (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”) called “Snootworld.”

“I love this story. Both kids and adults can appreciate it,” Lynch said of “Snootworld” in a 2024 interview.. “I've never done any real animation, but you can do some pretty impressive things with computers these days.” Unfortunately, in the same interview, the filmmaker also confirmed that Netflix ultimately decided not to finance the film.

“I don't know when I started thinking about 'Snoot,' but I was doing these drawings of Snoots, and then the story started to emerge. I got together with Carolyn and we worked on the script. More recently, I thought someone might be interested in it, so I pitched it to Netflix in the last few months and they turned it down.

Lynch has been discussing “Snootworld” since at least 2009. It was his passion project, and around this time, Netflix was very much into funding passion projects. From Martin Scorsese's The Irishman to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, it was a big part of the streamer's business model. However, for whatever reason, they chose not to fund Lynch's “old-fashioned tale.” It's a real shame, but it doesn't end there.

Rumors began to circulate In late 2020, Lynch had collaborated with Netflix on a television show tentatively titled Wisteria. Another rumored title, Unrecorded Night, also began to move forward. Some believed that the series would be related to “Twin Peaks”. Mostly, there was a lot of excitement around the idea, whatever it was. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be either.

Lynch's longtime producer Sabrina Sutherland confirmed in a 2024 Q&A report Tulip forum that “The Unrecorded Night” was actually going to be made by Netflix at one point, but the pandemic basically killed it. Here's what Sutherland had to say about it:

“'Unrecorded Night' was a non-Twin Peaks series that Netflix was planning to do, but it got canceled when the pandemic hit. There's always a chance we could do it again, but David has enjoyed his artwork and music efforts, so we haven't gone back to it.”

And so it was. Lynch has never been the biggest commercial bet in the world, and at a time when the industry was facing uncertainty, Netflix refused to invest heavily in Lynch. This is a tragedy not only because we were robbed of yet another project of true genius, but because Netflix is ​​more than happy to basically burn $200 million on things like 'The Gray Man' quite consistently. For less than half that price, any of these projects could see the light of day. Oh, that's not how things panned out.

“What did Jack do?” now streaming on Netflix.