David Lynch’s Bizarre Netflix Short Is A Reminder Of What Could Have Been

The world received quite tragic news recently. David Lynch, the brilliant filmmaker behind “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” has died at the age of 78. Part of what makes it so sad is that Lynch hadn’t done any big projects in recent years, with 2017’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” being the most significant entry in his later filmography. In 2020, we got a glimpse of what might have been in the director’s final years in the form of the short film “Beth Wnaeth Jac?”

Released by Netflix 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 strange as it sounds. It all takes place in a locked railway station, shot in black and white. It feels very true to the artist that Lynch was. More than that though, it was kind of testing the waters for a bigger partnership between Lynch and Netflix, one that wouldn’t end.

Around this time, the entire industry was becoming obsessed with pouring enormous resources into streaming as the future of Hollywood. Disney+ had just launched and Netflix was looking to maintain its lead over the pack. So, their checkbook was wide open. At one point, they nearly financed a long-gestating animated project cooked up by Lynch and screenwriter Caroline Thompson (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”) called “Snootworld.”

“I like this story. It’s something that both children and adults can appreciate,” Lynch said of “Snootworld” in an interview in 2024. “I’ve never done straight animation but with computers today it’s possible to do some spectacular things.” 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 ‘Snoots’ but I would make these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge. I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script . It was only recently that I thought maybe someone was interested in backing this so I pitched it to Netflix in the last few months but they turned it down.”

Lynch had been discussing “Snootworld” dating back to at least 2009. It was a passion project for him and, around this time, Netflix was very much involved in funding passion projects. From “The Irishman” by Martin Scorsese to “Pinocchio” by Guillermo del Toro, it was a big part of the streamer’s business model. Yet, for whatever reason, they chose not to finance Lynch’s “old-fashioned fairy tale”. That’s a real shame, but it doesn’t end there.

Rumors began to circulate late 2020 that Lynch has partnered with Netflix on a TV show, tentatively titled “Wisteria.” Another rumored title, “Unrecorded Night,” also began making the rounds. Some believed that the series was going to be related to “Twin Peaks.” Mostly, there was just a great deal of excitement around the idea, regardless of what it was. Unfortunately, this was not to be either.

Lynch’s longtime producer Sabrina Sutherland confirmed in a 2024 Q&A Tulpa Forum that “Unrecorded Night” was indeed 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 was going to shoot on Netflix but was canceled when the pandemic hit. There’s always a chance we could pick it up again, but David has been enjoying it his artwork and his music efforts, so we haven’t gone back to him.”

And so, that was that. Lynch was never the biggest commercial bet in the world and, at a time when the industry was facing uncertainty, Netflix refused to make a major investment in Lynch. That’s a tragedy, not only because we were robbed of another project by a true genius, but because Netflix is ​​perfectly happy to set fire to $200 million for things like “The Gray Man” quite consistently. For less than half that price, either project could have seen the light of day. Alas, that’s not how things shook out.

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