Beauty, fame, celebrity, horror, blood….Nicolas Winding Refn‘s upcoming “The Neon Demon” is going to be bringing a seriously potent blend of elements when it arrives in cinemas next week, and audiences everywhere can experience the film that divided audiences at the Cannes Film Festival. And while it might seem like Refn has been actively avoiding his more populist tendencies since the success of “Drive,” he says that at the time, some involved with the movie weren’t confident that it was going to work.
READ MORE: Beauty Is Vicious In New Images, Poster And TV Spots For ‘The Neon Demon’
“Well, it’s interesting when you say ‘Drive’ was a commercial movie because nobody liked it when I made it…But there’s no difference, I felt, from what I’d done on my other movies, and later on. It just became very exposed. Which was weird because when I was making it, everyone was like, ‘Oh man, you blew your chance.’ There were even people who had their names removed, and then when it premiered they wanted their names back on,” he told Collider.
However, for Refn, he’s fine with leaving it to market forces to determine how much money he gets to play with on each movie.
“…all my movies are commercial movies. That’s how I’m allowed to make movies, essentially. I don’t rely on subsidies, because it’s hard to get from Europe for the kinds of films I make, so basically I have to rely on the market. And the market dictates what are you worth and they will give you what equals that. And I have been lucky to sustain that,” he continued. “And oddly enough, ‘Only God Forgives‘ made more money than ‘Drive’ for the financiers, because it was a lot less expensive. So when it got time to make [‘The Neon Demon’], I said to the French financiers, ‘I need $5 million dollars. I have no names, I basically just have a script.’ And they said, ‘Okay.’ ”
Well, the names lined up for Refn anyway and “The Neon Demon” snared Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks and more to tell the twisted tale set in the modelling world. The film opens on June 24th and you can check out a couple of new clips and photos below.
