Shane Carruth Says Retirement Is Coming In 3 Years; Suggests ‘Modern Ocean’ Is Dead

You’ve likely already heard the rumors: 47-year-old filmmaker Shane Carruth has suggested he’s going to retire. The creator of the surreal and mind-bendingly ambitious sci-fi films, “Primer”(2004) and “Upstream Color” (2013), Carruth hasn’t been able to get many of his films off the ground and there was already a long, almost-ten-year gap between the two features he’s been able to bring to the screen.

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This week, Playlist contributor Robert Daniels spoke to Carruth about “The Wanting Mare,” an ambitious, dreamy sci-fi debut he executive produced and is directed by his friend and colleague Nicholas Ashe Bateman. And during this interview, Carruth confirmed retirement from filmmaking is not only in the cards but there’s only a three-year window until his departure.

READ MORE: Shane Carruth Discusses The World-Building In The New Indie Fable, ‘The Wanting Mare’ [Interview]

“I’m 47 right now,” he said. “By the time I’m 50, I’m out of this. So that’s my timeline. I’m out of this shit. I mean, I got a thousand other things that I want to do.”

READ MORE: Upstream Color’ Director Shane Carruth Says He’s Done With The Film Industry After His Next Project

At the same time, and somewhat contradictorily, Carruth said, in what eventually turned into a fairly esoteric, stream of consciousness interview, “My plan is to do a lot of films… all at the same time. Get them all off the same time [and then] get out of all this.”

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This tracks. In the past, Carruth said he would direct “The Modern Ocean,” another ambitious sci-fi film, he’s been working on for several years, and then retire.

READ MORE: Shane Carruth Heads To Hollywood As He Gears Up Big Budget Nautical Adventure ‘The Modern Ocean’

But in our long, sprawling conversation, when the conversation turned to ‘Modern Ocean,’ the filmmaker spoke of the project in melancholy-like past-tense terms and something that was dead and wouldn’t want to resurrect. The frustration of not being able to mount his dear-to-him projects— the legendary “A Topiary” script, and “The Modern Ocean”— was evident.

READ MORE: Shane Carruth Talks His Next Movie ‘The Modern Ocean,’ Says “It Erupts Into A Big Action Film”

“It’s hard to explain what ‘A Topiary’ and ‘The Modern Ocean’ mean to me,” he admitted. “It would be like saying that I have a daughter or two daughters and now I don’t have them anymore. So, the question is, ‘Hey, do you want to revive your daughter?’ Of course, I do. Of course, I do. I love her. I love [them]. But… I don’t know what I would do with a reanimated corpse.”

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Carruth suggested there might be one film in the cards, but didn’t reveal details and said it wouldn’t be one of the two aforementioned seemingly abandoned projects. “So, I think if I do my next deal, I’ll probably leave those works behind.”

READ MORE: Shane Carruth’s Beguilingly Enigmatic ‘Upstream Color’ May Cause Disorienting Side Effects, Results Will Vary [Review]

Vaguely, the filmmaker also suggested that perhaps another filmmaker could pick up the mantle on those films one day while reiterating they’re not projects he can go back to. “I would hope that somebody as gifted as Nick—not Nick [himself] because he doesn’t need to do it—maybe somebody like that [could make them],” he suggested. “I don’t know. I think it’s nice. I’ve been making my stories. They’re good stories, [but] I can’t do those stories anymore. That doesn’t make sense.” 

Reporting by Robert Daniels.