Deadline is reporting that production companies Wild Bunch and Vendian Entertainment have entered into a first-look deal with Danish director auteur Nicolas Winding Refn. This gives the two companies the first chance over anyone else to finance projects with Refn's company Space Rocket Nation. The three companies worked together on Refn’s hotly anticipated The Neon Demon which premieres at Cannes this year.
The new projects could be helmed by Refn himself or by other directors brought into his fold. The first project to be made under this new alliance will be Maniac Cop.
Parlty based on William Lustig’s 1988 cult classic, Maniac Cop will be written by Ed Brubaker (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and directed by John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning). This iteration follows the story of innocent people who are brutally murdered on the streets of Los Angeles by a uniformed police officer. As the death toll rises and the LAPD attempts a cover-up, one determined female cop sets out to reveal the truth. Wild Bunch previously was involved in a loose remake of Lustig’s 1980 Maniac, which starred Elijah Wood.