Not to Be Confused With: The title of this movie is similar to the 1996 film, Mulholland Falls, starring Chris Penn, to which this movie this is unrelated.

TV Note: This project was originally the pilot for a TV series on ABC which would've marked the return of David Lynch to TV a decade after Twin Peaks changed television history (not counting the brief 1992 run of On the Air). However, ABC decided not to pick up the series, and so the pilot was never aired. Now (3/30/00), TV Guide has reported that Canal Plus is in talks to pay ABC $7 million for the pilot, and budget a few million more to give it an ending so that it can be released as a complete feature film.

MPAA Rating: R (for violence, language and some strong sexuality)

Distributor: Currently seeking distribution in the USA.

Production Companies: Babbo, Inc., Imagine Televison, Le Studio Canal Plus, The Picture Factory, Touchstone Television

Cast: Laura Herring (Rita), Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Brent Briscoe, Billy Ray Cyrus, Robert Forster, Dan Hedaya, Ann Miller, Michael J. Anderson, Scott Coffey, Chad Everett, Kate Forster, Melissa George, Monte Montgomery, Mark Pellegrino, Katharine Towne

Marilyn Manson Note: Rock star Marilyn Manson had been in talks to appear in an episode of the TV series. It's unknown if there's a chance he could still appear in this film as part of the new scenes that will be shot to make it a feature film.

Director: David Lynch (the Straight story, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, The Elephant Man, Dune, Eraserhead)

Screenwriters: Joyce Eliason (several TV projects, including The Last Don), David Lynch (writer or cowriter of several of his films)

Music: This film features two new songs written by David Lynch: "Sixteen Reasons" by Connie Stevens, and "The New Girl" by Chris Isaak, whose first hit, "Wicked Game", was recorded for Wild at Heart, also directed by David Lynch.

Based upon: This feature film was originally filmed (except for the ending) to be a pilot for a TV series that was never picked up.

TV to Film Note: The transistion of a project from television to film is one that has happened only a few times, with the most famous being Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which was originally planned as a telefilm.

Premise: A woman (Herring) is abandoned on Mulholland Drive, followign a car accident, suffering from amnesia. She makes her way to an apartment where she meets an aspiring actress (Watts) who helps her put the pieces of her life, and the mystery of it all, back together. Elsewhere, other stories and characters weave into this ensemble piece, including a director (Theroux) with mobster problems, and a man whose dream comes true... (Michael J. Anderson plays a studio executive; Ann Miller plays the manager of the apartment complex).

Genres: Crime, Drama

Unofficial Director Fan Sites: The City of Absurdity, LynchNet (Both sites have plenty of neat things; the latter site has the pilot's script, and the text of a Movieline article in which David Lynch talks at great lenght abou this project).

Reviews of the Pilot: Mr Showbiz, CultureVulture.net

Official Site:

Also at Theaters: TBA 2001

Input about Upcomingmovies.com, or any movie covered here, is encouraged. Just e-mail Greg Dean Schmitz at greg@upcomingmovies.com. Please note that all release dates are subject to change.

Greg's Preview Thoughts: Some very unexpected good news came out this week (3/30/00) in the revelation by TV Guide that the French production company Le Studio Canal Plus is trying to work out a deal with ABC that would allow them to buy the rights to what was intended to be a TV pilot, in the hopes that with a few more million dollars, David Lynch can film an ending, and present this film in a way that suits him, and the audience. Like Twin Peaks, the pilot as it now stands, ends with several loose ends, since it was intended as merely a first taste of a larger universe. In an article in Movieline a few months back, David Lynch talked candidly about his frustrations with getting the go to make a pilot of which ABC executives had read the script, and then being shot down, with nothing but a 2 hour movie that never ends. David Lynch has a strong audience in Europe, and so it's not surprising that one of France's most successful companies would be coming in to save the day. This is just great news for all fans of David Lynch's work.

The pilot is out there. It's been reviewed (see links below), and positively. Hopefully, the deal will be accepted by ABC, and we will know what David Lynch's next project after the Straight story is... his project before the Straight story. Canal Plus doesn't distribute in the USA, but it is their plan to find a distributor, and get this movie on American screens, so we can see what ABC couldn't air. The Movieline article says that one of the executives objected to a shot of a piece of dog poo on a sidewalk; while the controversy over TV violence has also been mentioned (though ABC knew about the violence when they greenlit the project).

Mulholland Drive sounds to me like David Lynch doing for Hollywood (where he's lived for quite a while) what he did for small town America in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. This ensemble piece also touches upon the subject of dreams that were so central to Twin Peaks (and are recurring themes throughout his work). With the Straight story, we saw a sweet, old-fashioned story, and in Lost Highway (which was also set in California) we saw Lynch at his darkest. Now, it looks like, if the stars are right, moviegoers will get to see another vision of America through Lynch's eyes... somewhere along Mulholland Drive.

(12/28/00) It's been a while since anything's been heard about this feature film project, but the MPAA has announced the R rating, giving the company as "Babbo, Inc." (nope, I've never heard of them either).

Page Created: 3/31/00

Page Updated: 12/28/00