Ever since the success of the Pusher trilogy and Bronson, Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn has become atttached to all sorts of different projects. However while he’s got a Viking drama called Valhalla Rising coming up (it premieres in Denmark in March), it turns out he’s dropped two of the projects he’s been attached to for quite a long time.
Refn was supposed to be making both Jeykyll, with Keanu Reeves, and The Dying Of The Light, which was set to star Harrison Ford, but now both those projects are off the table. Empire reports that Jeykll collapsed because of issues stemming from clashing schedules, with Refn saying “I just couldn’t do it when they needed me.”
The Dying Of The Light meanwhile seems to have simply fallen to bits. The Paul Schrader scripted drama was supposed to go into pre-production next month, but now Refn says, “Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. It’s a shame. The script was fantastic but things fall apart. It’s one of those things that’s difficult – I really like Harrison and I think we got along great.”
Instead of those, as we reported last week, he’s now taken over from Neil Marshall as the director of Drive, with Ryan Gosling in the lead role (who took over from Hugh Jackman). After that he plans to go to Bangkok to make Only God Forgives, which the director describes as a western and will then make the Miami-set I Walk With The Dead.