John Hyams, the director of the Maniac Cop remake, has teased a new tone for the film.
News of a Maniac Cop remake has been around for years but the film’s attached director John Hymas has now offered an update on the project from producer Nicolas Winding Refn.
Speaking with The Movie Crypt podcast (via EW), Hyams said: “It will be a completely different thing tonally. I think that’s why I was hired. I think the reason why [producer] Nick [Winding Refn] was interested in me was because he saw what I had done with Universal Soldier, in the sense that I took it and made it my own and went completely off the reservation with it. Nick Refn loves exploitation cinema as much as the next guy, but he also is not interested in paying homage to things. He loves Maniac Cop, he loves the idea of it, he loves everything it represents, but he has no intention of making a tribute story.
“We’ve spent the last several years now developing this thing and… what we’re trying to do is make something that we’re taking the ideas of Maniac Cop and exploring them in a deep way. Our hope is that this is something that people who are fans of the original will find great pleasure in what we’re doing, because if you’re into genre storytelling you’re going to be into it, but I also think we’re telling a story about something bigger than that, which is really the breakdown of society.… It’s a big story that needed a larger canvas.”
SEE ALSO: Director John Hyams says Maniac Cop remake is still happening
Are you interested in seeing the remake of 1988’s Maniac Cop? For those unfamiliar, it tells the story of the hunt for a former police officer turned killer who was presumed dead.
