Speaking with Empire Magazine, prolific Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has confirmed our previous story regarding the casting of Harrison Ford in his Paul Schrader-penned project, “The Dying Of The Light.”
However our educated posit means little now as some reshuffling on the director’s timetable means ‘Dying Light’ and his Keanu Reeves-starring “Jekyll” (a modern “Jekyll and Hyde” retelling) are now unfortunately dead.
“Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out,” Winding Refn says of ‘Light.’ “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.” Considering Refn’s reputation as an egoist (he butted heads with Tom Hardy on “Bronson”) and Ford’s as a difficult, constantly-peeved old codger, this is really saying something.
“The Dying Of The Light” centered on a C.I.A. agent who starts to become afflicted with blindness on his last mission and was due to head into pre-production next month. Meanwhile, Winding Refn’s previously announced take on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, “Jekyll,” has also been dropped on account of scheduling issues. The director had noted he wanted to shoot in 2011 with the film now presumably set to begin production earlier.
“I just couldn’t do it when they needed me,” Winding Refn noted. “Keanu is a wonderful actor and I’m sure it will be a fantastic film with him in.”
The Dane will now tackle his newly-announced adaptation of James Sallis’ “Drive” starring Ryan Gosling about a L.A. stunt driver before moving onto his Bangkok-set neo-Western “Only God Forgives” and an unknown project titled “I Walk With The Dead” set in Miami which may or may not be his Gore Verbinski-produced heist film. He certainly loves those brutal titles.
On top of it all, the director still has his atmospheric viking film “Valhalla Rising” set for a 2010 release through IFC (once set for March according to the director, but that doesn’t appear to be the case now). The film featured heavily on the international film festival market and is on our Most Anticipated Films We’ve Already Seen For 2010 list. The more we hear about and see from this fillmaker the better.
