Danish born director Nicolas Winding Refn is a name you’re probably going to hear a lot more of in the coming years. His most recognizable effort to date was the 2011 Ryan Gosling vehicle Drive, as well as the Danish crime trilogy Pusher. Refn also recently released The Neon Demon, which competed this year at Cannes for the Palme d’Or. Refn’s career seems to be kicking into another gear at the moment and there doesn’t seem that there is the slightest hint of it slowing down anytime soon.
Today saw yet more positive news for Refn. Along with his brother Rupert Preston, who is Refn’s production partner, the brothers announced a third film to complete their trilogy of cult classes they plan to remake. Acting only as producers, the Refn brothers have slated Witchfinder General, a 1968 English film starring Vincent Price, Maniac Cop, a cult late 1980s franchise written by Larry Cohen and co-starring Bruce Campbell, and What Have They Done to Solange?, a giallo film from 1972, to go before the cameras. About What Have You Done to Solange?, the website Deadline had this to say, “Loosely based on the Edgar Wallace mystery novel The Clue Of The New Pin, What Have You Done To Solange? is set at an all-girls school where a killer is on the loose. Gym teacher Enrico Rosseni, who has been sleeping with one of his students, becomes a suspect and sets out to find the real killer. Ennio Morricone scored the original.”
Maniac Cop, set to start filming this summer, is the first of the trio of films under an agreement the Refns’ reached with Vendian Entertainment. According to another article on Deadline, “Vendian Entertainment and Wild Bunch have partnered with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Space Rocket Nation in a multi-year first-look deal which will also serve as an incubator for edgy and innovative commercial filmmakers. Under the pact, the alliance will have a first option to provide financing for Space Rocket’s features, helmed by Refn and other directors.”
Will these genre specific be profitable for the producers? We will see.
