In March 2008, the trades reported that filmmaker Neil Marshall (“The Descent”) had signed on to direct an adaptation of the James Sallis novel, “Drive.”
At the time Hugh Jackman was attached to star, and it was supposed to be Marshall’s first big studio gig. The novel centered on a stuntman who’s already-exciting existence is jolted when he discovers that a contract has been put out on his life.
But it seems like there hasn’t been a lot of movement on the picture and Marshall obviously went on to direct “Centurion” with Michael Fassbender instead which comes out later this year.
But it sounds like Playlist favorite, Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson,” “Valhalla Rising,” the “Pusher” trilogy) has taken over and has a new lead in Ryan Gosling. Empire spoke to Winding Refn today and he said:
“Hopefully [my] next is a movie with Ryan Gosling at a studio in America. It’s called ‘Drive,’ and it’s about a stuntman by day, a getaway driver by night.”
Empire confirmed with the director that Gosling has the lead role and it’s set in L.A. Sounds awesome, but we guess he’s not making a film with Harrison Ford? Or does Ford have a role in this one as well? Last we heard from an article in Empire, Ford said his next film would be shot in March and would be directed by Winding Refn. We, and others, speculated that that project would be, the Paul Schrader scripted “The Dying Of The Light,” about an aging CIA agent who begins to starts to become afflicted by blindness while on his last mission. But if it’s coming from NWR’s mouth that hopefully next comes drive with Gosling, it’s probably safe to say Ford was talking about the same project? Either way, Ford in a NWR film, equals a win win for cinemagoers .
At the time Marshall called “Drive” a, “scorched classic film noir concept” and that doesn’t sound far off from the book which is described as merging, “murder, treachery, and payback in a sinister plot resembling 1940s pulp fiction and film noir.”
Here’s the synopsis of the novel from Amazon:
I drive. That’s what I do. All I do.” So declares the enigmatic Driver in this masterfully convoluted neo-noir, which ranges from the dive bars and flyblown motels of Los Angeles to seedy strip malls dotting the Arizona desert. A stunt driver for movies, Driver finds more excitement as a wheelman during robberies, but when a heist goes sour, a contract is put on his head and his survival skills burn up the pavement. Author of the popular six-novel series set in New Orleans featuring detective Lew Griffin (The Long-Legged Fly, etc.) and such stand-alone crime novels as Cypress Grove, Sallis won’t disappoint fans who enjoy his usual quirky literary stylings. Reading a crime paperback, Driver covers “a few more lines till he fetched up on the word desuetude. What the hell kind of word was that?” Lines such as “Time went by, which is what time does, what it is” provide the perfect existential touch. In this short novel, expanded from his story in Dennis McMillan’s monumental anthology Measures of Poison, Sallis gives us his most tightly written mystery to date, worthy of comparison to the compact, exciting oeuvre of French noir giant
Nicolas Winding Refn is a busy man and in-demand. Later this year he has the amazing “Valhalla Rising” spiritual/horror Viking film coming out via IFC and other projects he has in the works include his Keanu Reeves-led “Jekyll,” a Bangkok-set neo-Western called, “Only God Forgives” and a Gore Verbinski-produced heist film still on the horizon.
