‘Maniac Cop’: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Remake Is Finally Shooting This Fall

It’s been almost a decade since we first heard about Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon) developing a Maniac Cop remake, and now it sounds as if production could kick off as early as this fall.

“Nic has it as his next project, that will shoot in the fall,” original Maniac Cop director William Lustig tells Icons of Fright.

Originally developed as a feature before being reshaped into an HBO series, the latest reimagining of the 1988 cult slasher is now back in development as a theatrical film, notes World of Reel, which tipped us to the video. At one point, the project had John Hyams (Sick, Alone) attached to direct from a script by comic-book heavyweight Ed Brubaker (The Winter Soldier), with Refn only producing.

“What happened with HBO was, HBO got sold to Discovery, and Discovery – after they’d spent over a million dollars developing the scripts for the series – Discovery says, ‘We’re not in the Maniac Cop business,'” Lustig explains.

“They gave all the scripts back to us, so we didn’t have to pay a turnaround, so that was it with HBO,” he continues. “Now it’s moving ahead. I can’t announce the company, but it will become known.”

“It’s sort of like one of these things that’s bouncing around in your head, and you wanna just get it out. I think Nic is at that point. This thing had so many fits and starts. It’s moving ahead and expected to start shooting in the fall.”

The original Maniac Cop centers on a series of savage murders in New York City that appear to be committed by a uniformed police officer. Suspicion quickly falls on young cop Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell), particularly after his wife is killed. As the death toll rises, Lieutenant Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins) leads the investigation and starts to uncover signs of a larger conspiracy within the department.