David Slade‘s last move was “Twilight: Eclipse” but he seems to have run into a few stumbling blocks getting his next film mounted. He had lined up the vampire horror flick “The Last Voyage Of Demeter” but potential star Noomi Rapace cast doubt on the project in the spring over her involvement and not much has been heard about it since. The most high profile gig Slade landed was taking on the reboot of “Daredevil” but that too seems to be in a weird limbo, with no other updates at all since it was first announced. He was also in the mix for “The Wolverine” but we all know how that turned out. Now it looks like he’s got an interesting new project coming his way, but too bad it sounds almost exactly like “Drive.”
The first in a potential franchise, with a sequel already being planned, Slade will direct “Coward,” the first in Ed Brubaker‘s award winning “Criminal” series that centers on Leo, a professional pickpocket, legendary heist-planner and thief. However, just like Driver, he doesn’t use guns, only does jobs on his terms but of course, one job in particular finds those rules going out the window. And it’s not just us making the comparison, as Brubaker himself says Ryan Gosling would have been ideal for the movie were it not for a certain Nicolas Winding Refn film.
“If Ryan Gosling hadn’t already been in ‘Drive,’ he’d be perfect,” Brubaker told Variety. “It’s a good role for any actor; about a guy who’s afraid to do things because of what’s inside of him. It’s a heist story, partly — it’s a lot of different crime stories wrapped in one, but heist stories are always exciting if they’re pulled off correctly.”
Making those associations with “Drive” certainly raises the stakes, but Slade is confident in the material which he says has “a gritty reality to it, but there’s a kind of underworld haze of noir.” Noir? Heists? Yeah, we’re interested, but let’s hope it has something fresh to say in a genre that is overrun with also-rans. No word yet on when this will lens but it seems to be Slade’s likeliest next effort mostly because everything else seems to be stuck at the moment.
