The Fly is a 1986 American science fiction body horror film directed and co-written by David Cronenberg. Produced by Brooksfilms and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, and John Getz. Loosely based on George Langelaan's 1957 short story of the same name and the 1958 film of the same name, The Fly tells of an eccentric scientist who, after one of his experiments goes wrong, slowly turns into a fly-hybrid creature. The score was composed by Howard Shore and the make-up effects were created by Chris Walas, along with makeup artist Stephan Dupuis.
The Fly was released on August 15, 1986, to positive reviews. It grossed $60.6 million at the box office, becoming a commercial success. Walas and Dupuis's work on the film resulted in them winning an Academy Award for Best Makeup. The tagline of the film, "Be afraid. Be very afraid.", has been used in many other productions as part of popular culture. A sequel, directed by Walas, was released in 1989.
Plot
Seth Brundle, a brilliant but eccentric scientist, meets Veronica "Ronnie" Quaife, a science journalist, at a press event. He takes her back to his home and laboratory and shows her his invention: a set of "telepods" that allows instantaneous teleportation between them. Seth convinces Ronnie to keep the invention secret in exchange for exclusive rights to the story, and she documents his work. Although the telepods can transport inanimate objects, they mutilate live tissue, as demonstrated when a baboon is turned inside-out during an experiment.
Seth and Ronnie begin a romantic relationship. Their first sexual encounter inspires Seth to reprogram the telepod to understand the makeup of living tissue. After he successfully teleports a second baboon, Ronnie hurriedly leaves to confront her editor Stathis Borans about his threat, spurred by his jealousy of Seth, to publish the story without her consent. Embittered and convinced she is rekindling her relationship with Stathis, Seth teleports himself alone, unaware that a fly has slipped inside the transmitter pod with him. He emerges from the receiving pod seemingly normal. Seth and Ronnie later reconcile.
Seth starts to exhibit increased strength, stamina, and sexual potency, which he attributes to the teleportation "purifying" his body. Ronnie grows concerned about Seth's changing personality and the strange, bristly hairs growing from a wound on his back. Seth becomes arrogant and violent, insisting that the teleportation process is beneficial, and tries to force Ronnie to undergo teleportation. When she refuses, he abandons her, goes to a bar and partakes in an arm-wrestling match, where he leaves his opponent with a compound fracture. He brings a woman named Tawny back to his warehouse to have intercourse. When Seth tries to coerce her into teleporting, Ronnie stops him and Seth throws her out as well.
When his fingernails begin falling off, Seth realizes something is wrong. He reviews the telepod's computer and discovers the fly that was in the pod with him. The computer, confused by the presence of two lifeforms, fused him with the fly at the molecular-genetic level.
Seth continues to deteriorate, losing body parts and becoming less human in appearance. After several weeks, he reconnects with Ronnie and says he is becoming a hybrid of human and insect he nicknamed "Brundlefly." He has begun vomiting digestive enzymes onto his food to dissolve it and gained the ability to cling to walls and ceilings. He also realizes that he is losing his human reason and compassion, driven by primitive impulses he cannot control.
Seth installs a fusion program into the telepod computer, planning to dilute the fly genes in his body with human DNA. Ronnie learns that she is pregnant by Seth, but does not know if the conception occurred before or after Seth's genes were corrupted. She worries that the child will not be human, and has a nightmare of giving birth to a giant maggot. She visits Brundle in order to break the news to him, but he warns her that he will harm her if she continues to visit. Terribly upset, she has Stathis persuade a doctor to perform an abortion in the middle of the night. Having overheard their conversation, Seth abducts Ronnie and begs her to carry the child to term, since it may be the last remnant of his humanity. Stathis breaks into Seth's lab with a shotgun, but Seth incapacitates him with his corrosive vomit.
Seth reveals his desperate plan to Ronnie: he will use the telepods to fuse himself and her, together with their unborn child, into one entity. As Seth drags her into one of the telepods, she accidentally rips off his jaw, triggering his final transformation into an insectoid-human "Brundlefly" creature, shedding his decayed human skin. Seth traps Ronnie inside the first telepod and enters the other, planning to use the prototype pod as the receiver of the combination of pods 1 and 2. The wounded Stathis uses his shotgun to sever the cables connecting Ronnie's telepod to the computer, allowing Ronnie to escape. The damage causes telepod 2 to malfunction and Seth attempts to smash his way through the door, only for the pod to activate just as he is stepping out, fusing Seth to a piece of the door and other components. The prototype pod receives the Brundlefly/Telepod fusion successfully; as the door opens, Seth falls out of the door and to the ground. He crawls to Ronnie and silently requests for her to end his misery by aiming Stathis's shotgun barrel, which she had picked up, at his own head. She eventually, and tearfully, shoots and kills him, falling to her knees in despair.
Cast
Production
Development In the early 1980s, co-producer Kip Ohman approached screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue with the idea of remaking the classic science fiction horror film The Fly. Pogue began by reading George Langelaan's short story and then watching the original film, which he had never seen. Deciding that he was interested in this project, he talked with producer Stuart Cornfeld about setting up the production, and Cornfeld very quickly agreed. The duo then pitched the idea to executives at 20th Century Fox and received an enthusiastic response, and Pogue was given money to write a first draft screenplay. He initially wrote an outline similar to that of Langelaan's story, but both he and Cornfeld thought that it would be better to rework the material to focus on a gradual metamorphosis instead of an instantaneous monster. However, when executives read the script, they were so unimpressed that they immediately withdrew from the project. After some negotiation, Cornfeld orchestrated a deal whereby Fox would agree to distribute the film if he could set up financing through another source.
The new producer was Mel Brooks; the film was to be produced by his company, Brooksfilms. Cornfeld was a frequent collaborator and friend of Brooks. Cornfeld gave the script to Brooks, who liked it but felt that a different writer was needed. Pogue was then removed from the project, and Cornfeld hired Walon Green for a rewrite. However, Green's draft was not a step in the desired direction, so Pogue was then sought to polish the material.
At the same time, Brooks and Cornfeld were trying to find a suitable director. David Cronenberg was shown the script for The Fly by Marc Boyman, who later produced Dead Ringers, but Cronenberg was working on Total Recall at the time. Cornfeld decided on a young British director named Robert Bierman after seeing one of his short films. Bierman was flown to Los Angeles to meet with Pogue, and the film was in the very early stages of preproduction when tragedy struck: Bierman's family had been vacationing in South Africa, and his daughter was killed in an accident. Bierman boarded a plane to go to his family, and Brooks and Cornfeld waited for a month before approaching him about resuming work on the picture. Bierman told them that he was unable to start working so soon, and Brooks told him that he would wait three months and contact him again. At the end of the three months, Bierman told him that he could not commit to the project. Brooks told him that he understood and had him freed from his contract.
Writing Cronenberg's agent, Mike Marcus, informed Cronenberg, after he left the Total Recall production, that Mel Brooks was interested in The Fly. Cronenberg agreed to sign on as director if he would be allowed to rewrite the script.Fear of The Flesh: The Making of The Fly, 20th Century Fox, 2005 Cronenberg, who watched the original film when it came out, was critical of the initial script stating that "I remember reading it and the first sixteen pages were awful". Cronenberg was paid twice the amount that he was paid for directing The Dead Zone.
Cronenberg stated that "one line of dialogue from Chuck's script" remained in the final version. Despite the extensive rewrite of Pogue's script, Cronenberg insisted during Writers Guild arbitrations that he and Pogue share screenplay credit, since he felt that his version could not have come to pass without Pogue's script to serve as a foundation. He did not meet with Pogue, who liked the film, until after the film was released.
Pogue's version of the lead scientist "was rather a dull, clever techno guy; just a boring, handsome guy" according to Cronenberg.
Casting Brooks wanted Pierce Brosnan to play the role of Seth Brundle, but Cronenberg rejected the casting. John Malkovich was the top choice for the role, but he declined. John Lithgow was also offered the role but turned it down, stating it was too grotesque. Michael Keaton (who would co-star with Davis two years later in Beetlejuice) and Richard Dreyfuss were also considered. Jeff Goldblum was proposed for the lead by Cronenberg as Goldblum was willing to perform with prosthetic makeup unlike other proposed actors like Dreyfuss.
Cornfeld opposed Geena Davis' casting due to her being Goldblum's then-real-life girlfriend. Cronenberg wanted Davis and Cornfeld made him "look at other actresses, but they were all disasters" which even Cornfeld admitted. Davis requested that Cronenberg play the gynecologist as she did not want a stranger performing the role.
Filming The film's budget was reported as $9 million and $15 million. It was shot in Canada at the Kleinburg Studio in Toronto. Chris Walas, who worked on Scanners, was hired to create the film's special effects. Principal photography began on December 1, 1985, in Toronto.
The film's audio mixing was done in London as it was cheaper than Los Angeles. The producers commissioned musician Bryan Ferry to record a song for the film for promotional purposes. The resulting track was "Help Me". A music video was made for the song, and footage from the film was prominently featured in it. Cronenberg admitted to liking the song, but he felt that it was inappropriate to the film itself. Brooks and Cornfeld originally wanted to play the song over the closing credits, but after Cronenberg screened it for them, they agreed with the director that it did not mesh with the movie. As a result, the song is featured only briefly in the film, in the background during the scene where Brundle challenges Marky in the bar. "Help Me" became rather obscure, as it was not included on the film's soundtrack release. The song resurfaced in 1988 on the Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry compact disc Ultimate Collection.
The design of Brundle's telepods was inspired by the engine cylinder of Cronenberg's Ducati Desmo motorcycle.
Deleted and alternate scenes