Way back in 2014 it was announced that Drive filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn was looking to produce a remake of the cult 1988 slasher Maniac Cop with director John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Regeneration). While the project has been on and off over the past five years, Deadline now brings word that it is officially moving forward, albeit as a TV series at HBO as opposed to a feature film.
“I’ve always been a devoted admirer of John Hyams,” said Refn. “We’ve been talking about a re-imagining of the Maniac Cop films for a number of years, but as we continued to work on the material, we found ourselves wanting to explore the world we were creating in greater depth. Turning Maniac Cop into a series will allow us to realize our wildest ambitions and to reach an enormous audience though partners HBO and Canal+. This show will be an unadulterated, action-packed horror odyssey. Given the current state of the world, though, Maniac Cop will also be a strong commentary on the decline of civilization”.
SEE ALSO: Why Maniac Cop is the remake you didn’t know you needed
Directed by William Lustig, the original Maniac Cop starred Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurence Landon and Robert Z’Dar, and followed the investigation into a mysterious serial killer in a police uniform. The logline for the series reads:
Set in Los Angeles, Maniac Cop is told through a kaleidoscope of characters, from cop to common criminal. A killer in uniform has uncaged mayhem upon the streets. Paranoia leads to social disorder as a city wrestles with the mystery of the exterminator in blue – is he mere mortal, or a supernatural force?
Refn is set to serve as showrunner on Maniac Cop, while he and Hyams will direct every episode.
