Paul Schrader To Direct 'The Dying Of The Light,' Nicolas Refn May Produce

There was a point where Nicolas Winding Refn was considering making a film called The Dying of the Light, about a CIA agent whose vision starts to fail while on a mission. Refn moved on to other projects, and won't direct the movie, but he might still make it.

The project's screenwriter is Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), whose micro-budget movie The Canyons has been generating a lot of talk for the past year. Now Schrader plans to direct The Dying of the Light later this year. He says Refn may still end up producing, and that they've got a major name nearly set to star.

The Playlist asked Schrader what happened to the script, and he offered,

I'm gonna make that this winter. I think Nic Refn will be exec producer or something, [and] we have gotten an A-actor for that. He's agreed to the terms, but we're still negotiating the perks. I'll do that film starting at the end of the year.

Harrison Ford and Channing Tatum were going to star, when Refn was looking into making the movie, but Ford pulled out and that pretty much killed it. Refn sounded pretty bitter talking about that, actually, as it was Ford's unwillingness to do the film's final act as written that caused him to balk, and to Refn that third act was precisely the point of making the movie. Not just that a thing happens to a character, but that it happens to a character played by an actor like Ford, and specifically to Ford. (That's as spoilerish as I'll get, since this might get made, but The Playlist link above has great direct quotes.)

Now, unlike The Canyons, this will reportedly be budgeted somewhat tightly, but still with traditional money — that shadowy big name probably helps — which means we could very well see it.