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Welcome to The Best Movies Never Made, a weekly lookback at the most fascinating, strange, and tantalizing films that came within striking distance of reality, but never actually made it in front of cameras — and maybe should have.
In the invaluable Faber & Faber book “Lynch on Lynch,” edited by Chris Rodley, the late David Lynch talked a little bit about his unrealized project “Ronnie Rocket.” Lynch recalled the span from the mid-’70s, when he was working on “Eraserhead,” through the mid-’80s, when he was working on “Dune,” when he was going to Bob’s Big Boy (the one in Burbank) on a regular basis. “Each day at 2:30 p.m.,” he said, “I’d have several cups of coffee and a chocolate shake — a silver goblet shake.” He admitted that the sugar rush gave him inspiration, and that he would jot down ideas on napkins at Bob’s, “I’m heavily into sugar. I call it granulated happiness.”
It was in the late 1970s, a little after “Eraserhead,” was starting to find success, that Lynch admitted that he became “fixated” on a project called “Ronnie Rocket,” an idea he had for a superhero-adjacent follow-up.
“Eraserhead” was, of course, a striking debut feature for the young filmmaker, and wise execs began calling Lynch about the possibility of hiring him for his next big project. Lynch admitted that, yes, a few unnamed studios called, and that he discussed “Ronnie Rocket” with them. When the studios asked what this movie “Ronnie Rocket” was supposed to be about, Lynch merely said “I don’t like to say too much about something, especially when it’s something strange or abstract. I told them basically it was about electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair.”
The studio heads were very polite, but he didn’t get a call back.
Lynch went on to make “The Elephant Man” instead, but the imagination is already aflame. What would a 1979-era David Lynch superhero-esque movie have looked like?