The world has received some pretty 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 hasn't done any major projects in recent years, and 2017's Twin Peaks: The Return was the most significant entry in his later filmography. In 2020, we got a glimpse of what might be in the director's later years in the form of the short What Did Jack Do?

Posted by Netflix in January 2020, "What Did Jack Do?” is a 17-minute short film 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 wonderfully weird as it sounds. It all happens in a locked train station, filmed 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 larger partnership between Lynch and Netflix, one that wouldn't 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 maintain its lead on the pack. So their checkbook was wide open. At one point, they almost bankrolled a long-running animated project by Lynch and screenwriter Carolyn Thompson ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") called Snootworld.

"I like this story. It is something that both children and adults can appreciate. Lynch told Snootworld in a 2024 interview. "I've never done direct animation, but with computers today it's possible to do some spectacular things." Unfortunately, in the same interview, the director also confirmed that Netflix ultimately decided not to finance the film.

"I don't know when I started thinking about 'Snoots,' but I would do these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge. I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script. I recently thought that someone might be interested in me getting behind this, so I pitched it to Netflix in the last few months, but they turned it down."

Lynch has discussed Snootworld dating back to at least 2009. It was a passion project of his and around that time Netflix was very much in the business of funding passion projects. From Martin Scorsese's The Irishman to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, it's been a big part of the streamer's business model. However, for whatever reason, they decided not to finance Lynch's "old-fashioned fairy tale." It's a real shame, but it doesn't end there.

Rumors began to circulate in In late 2020, Lynch collaborated with Netflix on a TV show tentatively titled Wisteria. Another rumored title, "Unrecorded Night," has also started doing the rounds. Some believed that the series would be related to Twin Peaks. Mostly, there was just a great deal of excitement around the idea, whatever it was. Unfortunately, this was not to be either.

Longtime Lynch producer Sabrina Sutherland confirmed in a 2024 Q&A on Forum in Tulpa that Unrecorded Night was indeed supposed to be picked up by Netflix at one point, but the pandemic essentially killed it. Here's what Sutherland had to say about it:

"The Unrecorded Night" was a non-Twin Peaks series that was supposed to be filmed on Netflix, but was canceled when the pandemic hit. , so we didn't go back to that."

And so, that was it. 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 big investment in Lynch. It's a tragedy, not only because they stole another project from a true genius, but because Netflix is ​​perfectly happy to essentially burn $200 million for things like The Gray Man pretty consistent. For less than half that price, any of these projects could see the light of day. Unfortunately, things didn't shake out that way.

"What did Jack do?" streaming now on Netflix.