While “The Neon Demon” might’ve died in theaters, only Amazon knows how it did on their service, but this much is clear: they want to stay in the Nicolas Winding Refn business. The streaming service which is nipping at the heels of the dominant Netflix, is eager to add high profile filmmakers to their roster, and giving them the budgets and freedom they need seems to have attracted top talent including Woody Allen, Whit Stillman, Jill Soloway, Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-Wook….you get the idea. And if you have that creative space, why would you leave?
That must be part of the thinking for Refn who has been given a straight-to-series order for “Too Old To Die Young” from Amazon. The show which he is co-writing, producing, and will direct, is said to be in the vein of the director’s “Pusher” trilogy, and will follow drug dealing Danish criminals in Los Angeles and their “existential journeys from being killers to becoming samurais in the city of angels.” Well, that’s certainly on brand for Refn.
Production on the ten-episode “Too Old to Die Young” will get underway this fall in L.A., and I would presume with casting and likely a lot of pre-production still to happen, it means his brewing feature “The Avenging Silence” will have to wait. [Variety]