Naked Lunch (film) items and themes from the film woven into the lyrics. Naked Lunch (film) Naked Lunch is a 1991 drama film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel of the same name, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain and Japan. The film was released on December 27, 1991, in the United States and April 24, 1992, in the United Kingdom by 20th Century Fox. It received positive reviews from critics, but was a box office bomb, garnering only $2.6 million
Naked Lunch because it was based on an earlier 1958 manuscript in Allen Ginsberg's possession. The article "the" in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition. Nonetheless "The Naked Lunch" remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi Books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name, especially in the UK where these editions circulated. Burroughs states in his introduction that Jack Kerouac suggested the title. "The title means exactly what the words say: "naked" lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on