section_path: Film career/2000–2009: Mulholland Drive and beyond
section_name: 2000–2009: Mulholland Drive and beyond
paragraph_text: 2000–2009: Mulholland Drive and beyond
  
  In 1999, Lynch approached ABC again with ideas for a television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive, but disputes over content and running time led to the project being shelved indefinitely. With $7 million from the French production company StudioCanal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. The film, a nonlinear surrealist tale of Hollywood 's dark side, stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, and Justin Theroux. It performed relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, earning Lynch Best Director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival (shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There) and Best Director from the New York Film Critics Association. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Director. In 2016, the film was named the best film of the 21st century in a BBC poll of 177 film critics from 36 countries. Roger Ebert, who had dismissed much of Lynch's earlier work, wrote: "At last his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes. The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it."
  
  With the rising popularity of the Internet, Lynch decided to use it as a distribution channel, releasing several new series he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com, which went online on December 10, 2001. In 2002, he created a series of online shorts, DumbLand. Intentionally crude in content and execution, the eight-episode series was later released on DVD. The same year, Lynch released a surreal sitcom, Rabbits, about a family of humanoid rabbits. Later, he made his experiments with Digital Video available in the form of the Japanese-style horror short Darkened Room. In 2006, Lynch's feature film Inland Empire was released. At three hours, it is his longest film. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, it lacks a traditional narrative structure. It stars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, and Justin Theroux, with cameos by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as the voices of Suzie and Jane Rabbit, and a performance by Jeremy Irons. Lynch called Inland Empire "a mystery about a woman in trouble". In an effort to promote it, he made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan "Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire ".
  
  In 2009, Lynch produced a documentary Web series directed by his son Austin Lynch and friend Jason S., Interview Project. Interested in working with Werner Herzog, in 2009 Lynch collaborated on Herzog's film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. With a nonstandard narrative, the film is based on a true story of an actor who committed matricide while acting in a production of the Oresteia, and stars Grace Zabriskie. In 2009, Lynch had plans to direct a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him, but nothing came of it.
  
  In 1999, Lynch approached ABC again with ideas for a television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive, but disputes over content and running time led to the project being shelved indefinitely. With $7 million from the French production company StudioCanal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. The film, a nonlinear surrealist tale of Hollywood 's dark side, stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, and Justin Theroux. It performed relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, earning Lynch Best Director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival (shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There) and Best Director from the New York Film Critics Association. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Director. In 2016, the film was named the best film of the 21st century in a BBC poll of 177 film critics from 36 countries. Roger Ebert, who had dismissed much of Lynch's earlier work, wrote: "At last his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes. The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it."
  
  With the rising popularity of the Internet, Lynch decided to use it as a distribution channel, releasing several new series he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com, which went online on December 10, 2001. In 2002, he created a series of online shorts, DumbLand. Intentionally crude in content and execution, the eight-episode series was later released on DVD. The same year, Lynch released a surreal sitcom, Rabbits, about a family of humanoid rabbits. Later, he made his experiments with Digital Video available in the form of the Japanese-style horror short Darkened Room. In 2006, Lynch's feature film Inland Empire was released. At three hours, it is his longest film. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, it lacks a traditional narrative structure. It stars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, and Justin Theroux, with cameos by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as the voices of Suzie and Jane Rabbit, and a performance by Jeremy Irons. Lynch called Inland Empire "a mystery about a woman in trouble". In an effort to promote it, he made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan "Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire ".
  
  In 2009, Lynch produced a documentary Web series directed by his son Austin Lynch and friend Jason S., Interview Project. Interested in working with Werner Herzog, in 2009 Lynch collaborated on Herzog's film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. With a nonstandard narrative, the film is based on a true story of an actor who committed matricide while acting in a production of the Oresteia, and stars Grace Zabriskie. In 2009, Lynch had plans to direct a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him, but nothing came of it.