UPDATE: I’ve seen a production grid for this one. It’s still untitled, but Refn’s next film is supposed to start production this coming September in Korea.
EARLIER: It’s official, after much chatter and rumors, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has confirmed that he’s working on a new film, via his Instagram. No other details were given by the filmmaker. Hopefully, it’s coming soon.
This is set to be his first film since 2016, when the director gave us 2016’s controversial “The Neon Demon”, a horror film starring Elle Fanning. The premiere at Cannes was famously, or infamously, met with both jeers and cheers.
This past September, Refn (“Drive,” “Only God Forgives”) told his masterclass Venice audience that he was working on a new film. No other details were shared. We’re also not entirely sure if it’s already been shot or if he’s about to go into production.
These last few years, Refn’s been mostly dabbling in TV content like “Copenhagen Cowboy” for Netflix, the Amazon series “Too Old to Die Young” and producing BBC’s “The Famous Five.”
No word yet on whether this next film of his will be in English or Danish, but in 2022 Refn claimed that “Hollywood was falling apart.”
Hollywood is very seductive and intoxicating, but it’s also a system that’s falling apart desperately. And I think they’re doing it to themselves more than anything else. Who knows? I would love to make something grandiose and big, but I would want to maintain my freedom, my impulse and creative control. The theatrical market is in its own redefinition of existence. For cinema to survive, we need to go back and make films again.
It now looks like he’s back in making movies. He’s kept hinting at something brewing in various interviews, although he also claimed that he was more interested, obsessed, in a new hobby he discovered: painting. He’ll now have to put that brush down and get back to work.
