Way back in 2016, filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (“Drive,” “Only God Forgives”) revealed he was working with James Bond in-house writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (“Casino Royale,” “Quantum Of Solace,” “Skyfall,” “No Time to Die “). Refn always played coy about what the project was, but when asked if the film was the Asia-set action thriller called “The Avenging Silence,” he responded, “Well, I think it may very well be. But it’s always fun to suddenly change things around.”
Well, some seven years later, that project is still in the works, may or may not be called “The Avenging Silence” still, and definitely sounds like it changed and evolved (you can read an early synopsis for it here, but this was ages ago). We recently spoke to Refn about his new fantastical and mystical crime series, “Copenhagen Cowboy” (it’s a very long interview), which is available now on Netflix, and you should binge it as soon as you can.
But during our conversation, I vaguely remembered something about working with Purvis and Wade, and Refn confirmed that a) he’s still working on the project, b) it’s seemingly taken on an entirely new life of its own, and c) he’s looking at it as his grand, final “endeavor of his soul” project.
“Rob and Neal are my very close friends, and we’ve been working on our little [project]—well, actually, not little anymore— it began tiny but has grown into its own monster of opportunities,” Refn said of the project. “It’s kind of my final frontier. The final endeavor of my soul.”
“It’s kind of where I see it all ending,” Refn explained, hinting at some magnum opus summation or climax of his career. “It’s a character that is the final countdown as one says that is the grand finale of my life.”
All of it started coming back to me suddenly, so I asked Refn if this and “The Avenging Silence” were one and the same, and while he seemingly confirmed, he was also typically vague about it all.
“It is, it’s part of it, and yes, it has to do something about spies, like [the character] says in [Alfred Hitchcock’s] ‘The 39 Steps,’” Refn said.
“Part of it,” hmm, does this mean “‘The Avenging Silence” has morphed into a series or a film franchise, I asked? He smiled coyly and just said, “It’s my last grand finale.”
Refn often starts with titles first, and I asked him about that and ‘Avenging Silence,’ and he said that evocative titles often spark his imagination and can take him to endless places.
“Yeah, it’s kind of like, it retains the esoteric openness of it because when you come up with a title [first,] it has so many pathways, so you begin to search in so many different areas, and it suddenly catches up with you, or it could be an image that can begin everything,” he explained.
I submitted that he shouldn’t be making the ‘Avenging Silence’ anytime soon then because his career should have many more statements before he makes a final précis and suggested he should have at least ten more films in him before he calls it quits. He said, “I should hope so!”
As for what is coming next, ‘Avenging Silence,’ ten other film or TV projects or what, Refn kept it close to the vest, suggesting he has no shortage of projects and ideas to pull from, but refrained from committing to anything publicly.
More from this near-hour-long conversation soon. Meanwhile, “Copenhagen Cowboy” is available on Netflix to watch now.