Now that The Neon Demon has well and truly supplanted I Walk With The Dead on the list of projects that Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn will tackle next, he’s busy figuring out who will fill the cast. He’s found a lead, with Elle Fanning entering negotiations to star.
Not much has been revealed about the plot of the film, although we do know it is set in Los Angeles and will track Fanning’s character’s attempts to conquer the world of modelling, only to confront a terrifying force of beauty and death. “Elle Fanning is a super cool wonder woman and I look forward to going on a terrifying trip with her into The Neon Demon,” Refn said in a statement picked up by The Wrap. Could he have found someone to replace Ryan Gosling in his filmmaking affections? Don’t panic, Ryan!
“One morning I woke and realised I was both surrounded and dominated by women,” Refn has said about the project. “Strangely, a sudden urge was planted in me to make a horror film about vicious beauty.” Refn plans to start the cameras whirring in March. Fanning has been nabbing plenty of work recently, most recently on Jay Roach’s Trumbo alongside Bryan Cranston and indie pic Three Generations. She’s also lined up a role in Ben Affleck’s next directorial outing, Live By Night, and has several other possible films on the horizon.