Nicolas Winding Refn on Rethinking His Logan's Run Remake for the iPhone Generation
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (The Pusher Trilogy, Bronson, Valhalla Rising) muscles his way into Hollywood this September with the charging crime thriller Drive, but he's also in the midst of remaking the 1976 sci-fi pic Logan's Run with his Drive star, Ryan Gosling, set in the lead. Movieline caught up with Refn at the L.A. Film Fest premiere of Drive for a quick update on the project.
"I haven't finished the script yet," Refn said, "but it is a movie that we all want to make. We're in the process of making it... My Logan's Run take is, how do you see the future from now and not just make it what it used to be?"
"You can't do a remake of things when technology in our world is already advanced," he continued. "The iPhone is more advanced than the Logan's Run of the '70s, so it's rethinking that. And that's what I spend most of my time on."
The original Logan's Run, about a member of a dystopian society who revolts against its mandatory termination of anyone over the age of 30, won an Oscar for its visual effects (which admittedly don't quite hold up, decades later). Many of the directors previously attached to the remake, including Bryan Singer, Joseph Kosinski, and Carl Erik Rinsch, have experience working visual effects into their films. But Refn's painterly style thus far has been more practical in nature, and his Logan's Run may not rely much on graphics work: "I would love to make it more with sets and designs and less with CGI."
Drive, meanwhile, hits theaters in wide release on September 16, giving Refn his biggest audience to date.
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Comments
Can I say how excellent it is to hear a director want to rely more on sets than CGI? It's very rare that CGI looks 100% real.
I am a fan of the original movie and think it holds up very well (apart from the last scene) but it is a shame they are looking to remake the movie rather than produce a different adaptation of the original book. Neither were perfect but both had some interesting ideas.
That said I am excited by what Winding Refn's could bring to the project.
That's an excellent point. All three books were great. The only change would be to keep the up to 30 instead of the 21 limit.
The original book had its problems but I hope they are using it as a source and adding updates. I've seen a few of Refn's other films. It will be nice seeing what he can do with a studio sized budget.
It sure would be refreshing to see actors in and around actual sets instead of walking through video game cut scenes.
(And wasn't Logan's Run already remade as Repo Men?)