When it comes to releasing movies at such a clip, Lanthimos concedes to Collider that “I can’t keep doing that anymore.” Ultimately, he confirms that he’s “going to take a little break” because making movies this way was “a big mistake.”
“It’s a big mistake,” Lanthimos says. “I think I need a break. I’ve said that before in between the other three, but I’m serious now. You can hold me to it. I’m going to take a little break. I decide which film to make every time a script is ready, so when it is ready, and we’ve been working on something for such a long time, it just feels like a shame to just leave it there and wait.”
“I kind of forced myself, almost, to try and find the time to do it immediately after I finished something,” he continues. “We shot Kinds of Kindness during that very long period of VFX on Poor Things, so I felt that I needed to do something during that time. Then, Bugonia, I had read three years before, and we worked with [screenwriter Will Tracy] a little bit on the script, so it felt ready, and we just wanted to go out and make it. So, you find the will and the strength, but at some point, it runs out. We’re at that point.”
Lanthimos used to be a little more patient in his decisions. After his breakout, Dogtooth, Lanthimos took two years before making his follow-up, Alps. Then it was four years before he returned with 2015’s The Lobster. But once he had a foothold with American audiences, he released 2017’s Killing Of A Sacred Deer and 2018’s The Favourite in quick succession. Then it was a now-uncharacteristic five years before he returned in 2023 with Poor Things. Thankfully, with nothing on the schedule, Lanthimos is free to cook up more Oscar-winning sexual nightmares for us to enjoy.
