Producer Robert Lantos of Serendipity Point Films first worked with David Cronenberg on the controversial Crash (1996), a feature that rocked Cannes, shocked London and led to what Lantos calls ‘one fun ride.’

He first met Cronenberg briefly in 1974, when Lantos attended the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. Montreal prodco and distributor Cinepix was there selling Cronenberg’s Shivers, as the young filmmaker crashed on someone’s couch. Lantos, not yet a film producer, bought product while sharing an apartment near the train station with Victor Loewy, today CEO of Alliance Atlantis’ Motion Picture Distribution LP.

It wasn’t until Lantos saw Dead Ringers (1988) that he recognized Cronenberg more than just an able filmmaker with the commercial success of The Fly under his belt. (That film had taken in US$40 million at the North American box office in 1986.) For the first time, Lantos saw genius he wanted to work with.

‘Dead Ringers showed me that David has an extraordinary insight into human nature that goes well beyond being able to tap into the pulse of an audience,’ he says.

So Lantos, then CEO of Alliance Communications, acquired the distribution rights to Naked Lunch and all its mugwumps, but had to wait until after Cronenberg made M. Butterfly (1993) to executive produce Crash.

Typical of a Cronenberg project, this screen adaptation of JG Ballard’s novel about multiple sex-driven car crashes had gone through the gamut of studio executives before finally getting a green light.

‘When he showed [his script] to me, I decided to do it because it was so dangerous. I loved the fact that it was way out of the box,’ Lantos recalls.

Never one to shrink from the potential for uproar and showmanship at Cannes, Lantos found in Cronenberg a true partner in crime.

‘David was as pleased as I was, and perhaps even more,’ Lantos says of the sensation Crash caused.

He recounts wading through a sea of paparazzi in Cannes, the booing and heckling in the press and gala screenings there, the division of the jury, the British press braying about ‘depravity,’ and Ted Turner and Jane Fonda demanding that U.S. distrib Fine Line Features not release the film, which they believed might cause viewers to have sex in their cars while driving at high speed. Cannes could not ignore the film’s impact, however, giving it a special award for ‘daring, originality and audacity.’

Lantos also recalls his second collaboration with Cronenberg, eXistenZ, with fondness. But there’s a tinge of disappointment in his voice over the comparatively sedate response the second film received at its world premiere in Berlin.

‘David is a hero in Germany, so we won the Silver Bear. The movie had warm applause, no catcalls, no paparazzi. It was all quite civilized,’ Lantos recollects.

Any roller-coaster ride in eXistenZ emerged more on the screen.

‘I liked the idea of making a film that was in the world of endless formulaic futuristic thrillers that are churned out by the studios, but which took that world and flipped it on its head,’ Lantos says of the original script Cronenberg brought him after MGM turned the project down.

In the end, the producer observes, making uncompromising films that mainstream movie-goers embrace is the key to Cronenberg’s success. Yet for all the eccentricity of his work, Cronenberg remains down-to-earth.

‘There’s no correlation between his personal life and his work. I’m not sure why a lot of people find that surprising. He’s pleasant to be with, charming, well-behaved,’ Lantos says.

The pair was set to reunite on the feature Painkillers, with the director’s first original script in six years, but Cronenberg has recently declared the creative well dry on the project, which, he says, concerns ‘performance art and artists of the future.’ They are currently mulling over a couple of other films, however.

Whether their next collaboration will make a big stir at Cannes, Lantos remains full of praise for the visionary filmmaker.

‘He’s thoughtful, and he’s open to criticism. If he wasn’t, I couldn’t work with him,’ he says.