Naked Lunch (film) 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 out of a $17–18 million budget due to a limited
Naked Lunch hashish confection] as well as a German opioid, brand name Eukodol, of which he wrote frequently). The novel was included in "Time" magazine's "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". In 1991, David Cronenberg directed a film of the same name based on the novel and other Burroughs writings. The book was originally published with the title "The Naked Lunch" in Paris in July 1959 by Olympia Press. Because of US obscenity laws, a complete American edition (by Grove Press) did not follow until 1962. It was titled "Naked Lunch" and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition