Aside from Remember The Titans back in the day, and the odd bigger film like The Notebook, Ryan Gosling has been famously leery of signing on to a blockbuster. Superhero pics have tried and failed to win him over, but it looks like things are changing as he’s just locked down a deal to star in Logan’s Run.
The most recent wrinkle on the long gestating new take on William F Nolan’s 1967 sci-fi novel was that director Carl Rinsch dropped out due to a scheduling clash with 47 Ronin. Before that, Bryan Singer had been attached to it for ages, even to the point of generating pre-production artwork and thinking about locations.
In a surprising move, though producers Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman have convinced Bronson director Nicolas Winding Refn to take on the challenge. And since he just worked with Gosling on action drama Drive – with the pair clearly getting on and looking to reunite – it’s a lot less shocking that he finally tempted Gosling to take on a bigger film.
The director and star will work from Alex Garland’s script, which will still follow Logan 5, an enforcer known as a “Sandman” who chases down those who try to escape their state-ordered death once they reach, which is how the futuristic human society keeps the population down and order in the world. But when he hits 30, he learns a shocking truth about his job and his life, and he himself decides to go on the run. The story was adapted into the 1976 Michael York film, but this promises to be something special.
Given what Refn did with Bronson, we have our fingers crossed that he could make something great with studio dosh. And with Gosling starring, you just know they’ll resist attempts to squash their ideas…