Twin Peaks

Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer, Ray Wise as Leland Palmer and Grace Zabriskie as Sarah Palmer.

Twin Peaks had only been cancelled for a month when it was announced that David Lynch would be making a movie with French company CIBY-2000 financing what would be the first film of a three-picture deal. However, on July 11, 1991, Ken Scherer, CEO of Lynch/Frost productions, announced that the film was not going to be made because series star Kyle MacLachlan did not want to reprise his role of Special Agent Dale Cooper. A month later, MacLachlan had changed his mind and the film was back on albeit without series regulars Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn due to scheduling conflicts. In a 1995 interview, Fenn revealed that the real reason she didn’t do the film was that she "was extremely disappointed in the way the second season got off track. As far as Fire Walk With Me, it was something that I chose not to be a part of." Fenn’s character was cut from the script and Boyle was recast with Moira Kelly. Even though MacLachlan agreed to be in the film, he only wanted a smaller role, forcing Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels to re-write the screenplay so that Agent Chester Desmond investigated the murder of Theresa Banks and not Agent Cooper as originally planned. MacLachlan also resented what had happened during the second season of the show. "David and Mark were only around for the first season...I think we all felt a little abandoned. So I was fairly resentful when the film, Fire Walk With Me, came around." He ended up only working five days on the movie. The relationship between Lynch and Mark Frost had become strained during the second season and after the series ended, he went on to direct his own movie, Storyville, and was unable to collaborate with Lynch on Fire Walk With Me.

Lynch decided to make a Twin Peaks movie because, as he said in an interview, "I couldn’t get myself to leave the world of Twin Peaks. I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside. I wanted to see her live, move and talk." Actress Sheryl Lee also echoed these sentiments. "I never got to be Laura alive, just in flashbacks, it allowed me to come full circle with the character." According to Lynch, the movie was about, "the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest. It also dealt with the torment of the father – the war in him." Filming began on September 5, 1991 in Snoqualmie, Washington and lasted until October of the same year, with four weeks dedicated to locations in Washington, and another four weeks of interiors and additional locations in Los Angeles.

When shooting went over schedule in Seattle, Laura's death in the train car had to be shot in L.A. on soundstage during the last day of shooting, October 31.