Nicolas Winding Refn is producing a remake of… | Little White Lies

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Nico­las Wind­ing Refn is pro­duc­ing a remake of Mani­ac Cop

24 Mar 2017

Words by John Wadsworth

A police officer with a bloodied, injured face and a startled expression.
A police officer with a bloodied, injured face and a startled expression.
The Neon Demon direc­tor is work­ing on a new update of William Lustig’s cult clas­sic from 1988.

Nico­las Wind­ing Refn has a habit of cre­at­ing films that com­bine gor­geous visu­als with grue­some sub­ject mat­ter, and 2016’s The Neon Demon took both to new extremes – and to great effect.

We’re hop­ing he’ll up the ante yet again with his next fea­ture, the espionage/​Yakuza thriller The Aveng­ing Silence, for which an intrigu­ing (and sur­pris­ing­ly detailed) syn­op­sis has already been released.

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We may have a while to wait before it hits cin­e­mas – last time we heard, it was still in devel­op­ment – but thank­ful­ly for us Refn fans, it’s not the only project the Dan­ish provo­ca­teur has his claws sunk into.

He’s cur­rent­ly pro­duc­ing a remake of William Lustig’s 1988 hor­ror Mani­ac Cop, which he has giv­en his offi­cial stamp of approval via an ear­ly poster bear­ing the announce­ment ​‘Nico­las Wind­ing Refn presents’.

As the to-the-point title sug­gests, the film cen­tres on a bru­tal ser­i­al killer who hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the New York Police Depart­ment. It falls to anoth­er offi­cer to inves­ti­gate which of her col­leagues is the culprit.

John Hyams is set to direct, with Refn and Ed Brubak­er, whose cred­its include Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: The Win­ter Sol­dier, pro­vid­ing the script.

Speak­ing to Vari­ety, pro­duc­er Lene Bør­glum has said that the film will mix hor­ror and action ele­ments. We’re expect­ing a gris­ly mod­erni­sa­tion of the cult clas­sic that places Refn and Hyams’ pulp influ­ences front and centre.

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