Filmmakers should never allow themselves to be pigeonholed, but even at that, but Nicolas Winding Refn being announced as the director of an Enid Blyton trilogy has come right out of left field to put it lightly.
The director is well-known and infamous in equal measure for delivering a string of hard-hitting, unflinching, brutally violent, and often controversial thrillers that includes the Pusher trilogy, Tom Hardy’s breakthrough role in Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives, and The Neon Demon, but he’s now broadening horizons in surprising style.
Three 90-minute features are in the works based on Blyton’s 21-book The Famous Five series, with the BBC already on board in what makes perfect sense given the quaint Britishness of the source material. Julian, Dick, Anne, George, and canine companion Timmy are a quintet of explorers who always seem to get caught up in a labyrinthine mystery of one kind or another.
Among the best-selling children’s novels of all-time, Winding Refn will serve as the creative overseer and executive producer, and he explained his unexpected career detour in an official statement.
“All my life I’ve fought vigorously to remain a child with a lust for adventure. By reimagining The Famous Five, I am preserving that notion by bringing these iconic stories to life for a progressive new audience, instilling the undefinable allure and enchantment of childhood for current and future generations to come.”
Ultraviolence is almost certainly off the table, but there’s no shortage of curiosity surrounding the project already, especially if he takes the plunge and decides to direct at least one chapter himself.
