Last month, we brought you news that Drive and Only God Forgives auteur Nicolas Winding Refn was in talks with Sony to direct their haunted house flick The Bringing. Unfortunately, though Refn was the one who sought out the project and lobbied to helm it, now it appears that the director will not be making the film after all.
According to Variety reporter Justin Kroll, negotiations between Refn and Sony have stalled. No other news was available, and Refn has been quiet about it. If it turns out that Kroll’s scoop is legitimate though, that’s a major bummer for horror buffs everywhere.
Kroll’s tweet read:
Well this is a bummer, hearing Nic Refn will not direct THE BRINGING at Sony as negotiations have stalled. Too bad
— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) June 13, 2014
The Bringing, which was written by Brandon and Phillip Murphy, seemed like a very promising horror flick, though its grounding in reality may have made the project a tricky and potentially insensitive one for Sony. It’s based on a bizarre real-life case involving Elisa Lam, a Canadian woman who inexplicably travelled to Los Angeles and wound up dead in a water tank on the roof of a downtown hotel. However, the focus is actually on “a man investigating a death at the hotel, and the nightmare he stumbles into.”
Refn has made it clear in his past films that he isn’t afraid to push buttons, so it’s possible that his approach to the material was a little too brutal and divisive for Sony to agree to it.
Luckily, even though The Bringing will have to be brought by a different director, Refn’s fans will get to see him helm a horror flick in the form of the all-female I Walk With The Dead, which currently has Carey Mulligan attached to star. That sounds a lot more like a Refn project than The Bringing ever did – he’s been mum on the details, but it’s R-rated and will features “lots of sex.”
