<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" David Cronenberg has explained that financial considerations scuppered planned sequels to Eastern Promises and The Fly. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s pretty much dead,&amp;quot; the Canadian director told Digital Spy about the current state of Eastern Promises 2, which was slated to begin shooting in October and feature Viggo Mortensen reprising his Oscar-nominated role as the shady Nikolai.  &amp;quot;I think it was money,&amp;quot; stated the auteur on the reason behind the movie&amp;#039;s cancellation, &amp;quot;and I think it&amp;#039;s just the general reaction to what&amp;#039;s been happening economically, in terms of economics around the world and in particular in the film business. &amp;quot;Focus Features will not let go of it,&amp;quot; Cronenberg said about the prospect of another studio making it. &amp;quot;They don&amp;#039;t want to make it, but they don&amp;#039;t want to give it to somebody else to make it. It&amp;#039;s not very good, and it&amp;#039;s frustrating all around. &amp;quot;I do think there are other places - independent producers would happily have taken the Steven Knight script, which was really good, and produced it separately from Focus even with them having distribution.&amp;quot; Cronenberg - whose latest movie Cosmopolis starred Robert Pattinson - also clarified the status of reports that he had written a follow-up to The Fly.   His acclaimed 1986 horror remake starring Jeff Goldblum already receives an official sequel with Eric Stoltz in 1989, but Cronenberg&amp;#039;s plans to continue the story were thwarted for familiar reasons. &amp;quot;Oh, that too is not happening, also because of budget constraints and other things,&amp;quot; he admitted. &amp;quot;I think maybe the script that I wrote was a little too radical for Fox, and they felt it really needed to be a very low-budget film at that point.  &amp;quot;However, what was in it that attracted them could not be done low-budget. So I think that was the problem.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;gt; Read Digital Spy&amp;#039;s full interview with David Cronenberg Cosmopolis is available on Blu-ray and DVD now. Facebook.com/CosmopolisUK "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a437645/cronenberg-eastern-promises-the-fly-sequels-axed-over-money/>