Ronnie Rocket is an unfinished film project written by David Lynch, who also intended to direct it. Begun after the success of his 1977 film Eraserhead, Lynch shelved Ronnie Rocket due to an inability to find financial backing for the project. Instead, he sought out an existing script on which to base his next film, settling on what would become 1980's The Elephant Man. Lynch returned to Ronnie Rocket throughout the 1980s but by the following decade had stopped considering it to be a viable prospect.
Ronnie Rocket, also subtitled The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence, was to feature elements which have since come to be seen as Lynch's hallmarks, including industrial art direction, 1950s popular culture and physical deformity. The script featured a three-foot tall man with control over electricity; Lynch first met Michael J. Anderson when tentatively casting for this role and later worked with him in Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive.
Overview
Ronnie Rocket concerns the story of a detective seeking to enter a mysterious second dimension, aided by his ability to stand on one leg. He is being obstructed on this quest by a strange landscape of odd rooms and a mysterious train, while being stalked by the "Donut Men", who wield electricity as a weapon. Besides the detective's story, the film was to show the tale of Ronald d'Arte, a teenage dwarf, who suffers a surgical mishap, which leaves him dependent on being plugged into a mains electricity supply at regular intervals; this dependence grants him an affinity over electricity which he can use to produce music or cause destruction. The boy names himself Ronnie Rocket and becomes a rock star, befriending a tap dancer named Electra-Cute.
The film, subtitled The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence, was to make use of several themes that have since become recurring elements in David Lynch's works—a write-up for The A.V. Club described the script's contents as "idealized 1950s culture, industrial design, midgets, [and] physical deformity". Writing for LA Weekly, John Dentino suggested that the screenplay "reads like the source work for all [Lynch's] films, as well as Twin Peaks". The film was to have featured two separate but connected worlds, another hallmark of Lynch's writings. The film's art direction would have featured a heavily industrial backdrop; Greg Olson described the action as taking place against an "oil slick, smokestack, steel-steam-soot, fire-sparks and electrical arcs realm", similar to the direction ultimately taken in the depiction of Victorian England in The Elephant Man and the planet Giedi Prime in Dune. Although Lynch shot his first two feature-length films in black-and-white, he intended to film Ronnie Rocket in color, inspired by the works of French film-maker Jacques Tati. Lynch planned to experiment for some time to find the right balance and application of color for the film.
Background
After releasing 1977's Eraserhead, a black-and-white surrealist film and his debut feature-length production, Lynch began work on the screenplay for Ronnie Rocket. He and his agent, Marty Michaelson, of William Morris Endeavor, initially attempted to find financial backing for the project. They met with one film studio on the matter. Lynch described the film as being "about electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair"; the studio never got back in touch with him.
Lynch met film producer Stuart Cornfeld at this time. Cornfeld had enjoyed Eraserhead and was interested in producing Ronnie Rocket. He was working for Mel Brooks and Brooksfilms, and when the pair realized Ronnie Rocket was unlikely to find sufficient financing to be produced, Lynch asked to see some already-written scripts to work from for his next film instead. Cornfeld found four scripts he felt would interest Lynch, but on hearing the name of the first of these, the director decided his next project would be The Elephant Man.
Lynch would return to Ronnie Rocket after each of his films, intending it, at different stages, as the follow-up not only to Eraserhead or The Elephant Man but also Dune, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. After producing The Elephant Man, Lynch had planned to cast Dexter Fletcher in the title role. Brad Dourif, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nance, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, and Dean Stockwell have also been considered for roles in the film at various times; each has worked with Lynch on other projects.