Though not quite as landmark as the book which spawned it, the film adaptation of “Naked Lunch” was a triumph in surrealist cinema.

Recently released on DVD by the Criterion Collection, David Cronenberg’s film version is vastly different from the original text. It was realized early that William S. Burroughs’ mind epic would not only cost $200 million to produce, but would also be nearly unmarketable.

In addressing these issues, Cronenberg decided to devote about half of his script to pieces of the original plot and then intertwine them with a biographical rehashing of Burroughs’ life surrounding the years when he produced the novel – including the accidental shooting of his wife.

The film follows Burroughs’ literary-psuedonym Bill Lee as a New York City exterminator. Lee finds out – through his wife Joan – that his bug poison is a powerful drug with opiate-like qualities – a metaphor for Burroughs’ own heroin addiction. After Lee accidentally murders Joan, he flees the country with his Clark-Nova typewriter which morphs into a large beetle when high on the bug funk.

He lands in Tangiers and begins composing “Naked Lunch” while meeting other junkies and degenerate American ex-patriates. The typewriter convinces him he’s an agent of Interzone and must make reports to it regarding various activities. The movie meanders through the sandy North African city and never leaps above a level of absurdity, amounting to a drawn-out drug odyssey.

The film fits well into Criterion Collection’s diverse set of films, which rely upon no genre other than what they feel is “important.” Originally beginning as a LaserDisc company, Criterion has 224 DVD releases under its belt, with titles ranging from “400 Blows,” to “Rushmore.”

The group not only reproduces films for release under its name, but it gives each the “Criterion treatment.” In the case of “Naked Lunch,” many rare and previously unavailable extras were included such as a Burroughs reading of “Naked Lunch” excerpts, interviews with Cronenberg and Peter Weller (Bill Lee), a 20-minute documentary about the making of the film and multiple stills galleries, including black-and-white photos of Burroughs by Allen Ginsberg.

“(‘Naked Lunch’) was one of those titles that just cried out to us,” said Karen Stetler, “Naked Lunch’s” DVD production head for Criterion. “It’s also one of those movies that we knew that there was a lot out there to include.”

Putting together Criterion’s premium DVD sets requires large amounts of leg work and licensing that can limit the company’s abilities when things don’t go as planned.

“It’s complicated getting all the pieces together,” Stetler said. “We had worked with David (Cronenberg) before and he’s very generous about giving access to all he has.”

Stetler and Criterion secured the film’s rights from Fox, raided a Toronto library for the film’s stills and tracked down Ginsberg’s intimate photos of Burroughs and the Beat poet together. The process took roughly six months with Stetler overseeing materials research, cast interviews, editing, design and securing the four critical essays.

“I love the whole experience of making a movie, especially on a film that really deserves to be in the collection and that we’ve been waiting for for years,” Stetler said.