Development The basis for
Videodrome came from
David Cronenberg's childhood. Cronenberg used to pick up
American television signals from
Buffalo, New York, late at night after
Canadian stations had gone off the air, and worry he might see something disturbing not meant for public consumption. As Cronenberg explained, "I've always been interested in dark things and other people's fascinations with dark things. Plus, the idea of people locking themselves in a room and turning a key on a television set so that they can watch something extremely dark, and by doing that, allowing themselves to explore their fascinations." Cronenberg watched
Marshall McLuhan, on whom O'Blivion was based, and McLuhan later taught at the
University of Toronto while Cronenberg was a student there, although he never took any of McLuhan's classes. Cronenberg's first exploration of themes of the branding of sex and violence and media impacting people's reality was writing a treatment titled
Network of Blood in the early 1970s; its premise was a worker for an independent television company (who would become Max Renn in
Videodrome) unintentionally finding, in the filmmaker's words, "a private television network subscribed to by strange, wealthy people who were willing to pay to see bizarre things." He later planned the story to be told from the main character's
first-person perspective, showcasing a duality between how insane he looks to other people and how he himself perceives a different reality in his head. Concepts similar to
Network of Bloods were further explored in a 1977 episode of the
CBC Television series
Peep Show Cronenberg directed, named "The Victim." The film's fictional station CIVIC-TV was modeled on the real-life Toronto television station
CITY-TV, which was known for broadcasting pornographic content and violent films in its late-night programming bloc
The Baby Blue Movie. Victor Snolicki, Dick Schouten, and
Pierre David of Vision 4, a company taking advantage of Canada's tax shelter policies, aided Cronenberg in the film's financing. Vision 4 dissolved after Schouten's death and reorganized into Filmplan International which funded
Scanners. Solnicki, David, and Claude Héroux formed Filmplan II which gave financial backing to
Videodrome. This was the last film Cronenberg made under Canada's film tax shelter policy. Cronenberg's increased reputation made it easier for his projects to get produced, leading to the film's $5.5 million budget, more interest from studios and producers, and a larger number of interested actors to choose from. After the box office success of
Scanners, Cronenberg turned down the chance of directing
Return of the Jedi, having had no desire to direct material produced by other filmmakers. Cronenberg met with David in
Montreal to discuss ideas for a new film, with the former pitching two ideas, one of them being
Videodrome. Although talent for the film was attracted using the first draft, alterations were made constantly from pre-production to post-production. Accumulation of the cast and crew started in the summer of 1981 in Toronto, with most of the supporting actors being local performers of the city.
Videodromes three producers, David, Claude Héroux and Victor Solnicki, suggested
James Woods for the role of Max Renn; they unsuccessfully tried to attach him to another film they produced,
Models (1982). Woods was a fan of
Rabid (1977) and
Scanners, and met Cronenberg in
Beverly Hills for the part; Cronenberg liked the fact that Woods was very articulate in terms of delivery,
Filming The film was shot in Toronto from October 27 to December 23, 1981, on a budget of $5,952,000 (), with the financing equally coming from Canada and the United States. 50% of the film's budget came from Universal. The initial week of filming was devoted to videotaping various
monitor inserts. These included the television monologues of Professor Brian O'Blivion, as well as the
Videodrome torture scenes and the soft-core pornographic programs
Samurai Dreams and
Apollo & Dionysus. The video camera used for the monitor scenes was a Hitachi SK-91. The film's cinematography was handled by
Mark Irwin, who was very uncomfortable with doing the monitor scenes; he was far more experienced with composing shots for regular film cameras than videotapes, disliked the flat television standards of lighting and color, and couldn't compose his shots privately as all of the film crew watched the monitors as the shots were being set up. Cronenberg stated that
Videodrome was the first time that he fired a crew worker due to an incident between a hairdresser and Harry. The
Samurai Dreams short was filmed in half a day without any audio recorded at a rented spot at a
Global TV studio in Toronto, and lasted five minutes longer than what ended up in the final film. Three different endings were filmed. The ending used in the final film, wherein Max shoots himself on the derelict ship, was James Woods' idea. One of the initial intentions for the ending was to include an epilogue after the suicide, wherein Max, Bianca, and Nicki appear on the set of
Videodrome. Bianca and Nicki are shown to have chest slits like Max, from which grotesque, mutated
sex organs emerge. Woods found the stomach slit uncomfortable,
Music An
original score was composed for
Videodrome by Cronenberg's close friend, Howard Shore. The score was composed to follow Max Renn's descent into video hallucinations, starting out with dramatic orchestral music that increasingly incorporates, and eventually emphasizes, electronic instrumentation. To achieve this, Shore composed the entire score for an orchestra before programming it into a
Synclavier II digital synthesizer. The rendered score, taken from the Synclavier II, was then recorded being played in tandem with a small string section. The resulting sound was a subtle blend that often made it difficult to tell which sounds were real and which were synthesized. The soundtrack was also released on vinyl by
Varèse Sarabande, and was re-released on compact disc in 1998. The album itself is not just a straight copy of Shore's score, but a remix. Shore has commented that while there were small issues with some of the acoustic numbers, "on the whole I think they did very well".
Editing Cronenberg stated that the first
test screening of a 72-75 minute cut of the film was "the most disastrous screening you can imagine". He and editor
Ronald Sanders "thought we had cut it really tight, but it was totally incomprehensible that you didn't even know that Max Renn worked at Civic TV, I'd cut out all the footage that explained that". The
MPAA requested multiple edits to the film. Bob Remy, the head of Universal Pictures, also suggested removing the scene in
Samurai Dreams showing the dildo. Cronenberg was confused by Remy's suggestion as the "MPAA didn't even ask me to cut that. Why is he asking me to cut that".
Thom Mount told Cronenberg that it was due to Remy having "a problem with cocks". The film's runtime was 87 minutes and 18 seconds in Canada and the United States, but was 15 seconds longer in the international version. Cronenberg was critical of edits
Universal Pictures performed on the film without request from the MPAA. == Themes ==