Deadline has word that Nicolas Winding Refn may have finally found his followup project to Only God Forgives in the horror film The Bringing for Sony Pictures. Scripted by Brandon and Philip Murphy, draws on an unsettling security video of a woman, Elisa Lam, behaving strangely in an elevator at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. The hotel is notorious for having numerous suicides committed as well as having serial killer Richard Ramirez as a guest for a while. What makes the video of Elisa Lam even more discomforting is that she was found dead in the water tanks on the roof of the hotel.
This script will not be adapting her event even though it sparked the idea. The script will instead focus on a man investigating a death at the hotel, and the nightmare he stumbles into. While Valhalla Rising, Only God Forgives and Fear X could be argued as horror films in their own right, Refn has never jumped directly into the genre before. Refn has been spending his time since Only God Forgives mulling over a few projects including a TV adaptation of Barbarella and an untitled project that would reunite him with Drive star Carey Mulligan. It could be safe to say that if he signs on, this will be his next project as he actively sought this out.
I am a giant fan of Refn because he is a director that never phones it in. Even in his hardest-to-like work, he retains an authentic control over the tone and atmosphere of the film. With his knack for tone and atmosphere I think it’s safe to say that even with a puzzlingly bland title like The Bringing, Refn could create a haunted hotel film that could stand with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Ti West’s The Innkeepers. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as more news on this project unfolds.
Source: Deadline
