We’re bordering on giving Nicolas Winding Refn a *** job with all the myriad reports on his work, but what can we say, we admire the Danish filmmakers work (“Bronson,” “The Pusher” trilogy, “Valhalla Rising“) and his upcoming film “Drive” is very high up on our most anticipated 2011 list. So we’ll keep it brief.
“Drive” has been penciled in for a September 16, 2011 release date. The picture was acquired earlier this year by FilmDistrict, the new upstart distributors started by GK Films partners Graham King and Tim Headington and run by Peter Schlessel and former Apparition exec Bob Berney, who have pegged it for a late summer or fall 2011 release.
The cast is rather stellar and includes Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Christina Hendricks, Oscar Issac, and it was budgeted at a relatively low $30 million.
The action drama centers on a nameless Hollywood stuntman (Gosling) who moonlights as a freelance getaway driver during robberies. When a bank heist goes wrong, he ends up on the run with a contract on his head and an ex-con’s girlfriend in his car. The film was written by Hossein Amini (”Shanghai,” one draft of the upcoming Jack Ryan franchise reboot, “Moscow”) and we can’t wait to see what Refn’s keen visual eyes do with the material.
Ryan Gosling recently told The Playlist that he’d love to do a sequel to “Drive” and described the picture as a “crazy cross between ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Purple Rain.’” Umm, so yeah, now you know why we’re colored psyched. IndieWIRE recently announced that the flick will be the pilot film in Netflix’s new service which will offer streaming of first-run theatrical features to its members — the film will be made available during the “pay TV window” of their release, the span of time where films usually are aired on premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime. [BOM]