I’ve heard from more than one reliable source that Brian De Palma was done directing. It’s believable enough without any inside info: the five years since his, let’s say, fascinating and compromised Domino have not found him growing any younger, and a director who’d taken so many hits in the preceding decades only has so many options left, none of which that film could be said to renew. At the very least it would’ve ended his career with the greatest transition to end credits anybody could hope.
Yet in a new interview with Bilge Ebiri (during which it’s hilariously revealed he turned off Air before its homage to Body Double because he “got kind of bored with it”) De Palma spoke of a new project with some seeming optimism, albeit briefly: “I have one other film I’m planning to make. And we’re in the process of trying to cast it. I can’t tell you what it is, until it happens. Then I’ll be very happy to announce it.”
Before Domino, De Palma had planned at least two films: Sweet Vengeance, a crime picture, and Predator, a thriller inspired by Harvey Weinstein (and which I have been told contains a twist that, if achieved, would generate discourse that causes your phone to crack in half). It could as certainly be either of these as it is neither; the man’s had some time to formulate new projects. Whatever it is, one hopes the 84-year-old can achieve traction shortly.