Elle Fanning is in talks to star as the lead of a female-driven horror film The Neon Demon, from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn.
NewsDrive was a really neat movie, wasn’t it? Nothing but slick neon colors, under the surface iceberg-performances, and a pulsating 1980s-inspired electronic soundscape. It’s so wild that we can immediately forgive director Nicolas Winding Refn for his follow up Only God Forgives while looking forward to The Neon Demon, a chic horror film that has now found its lead.
As first reported by TheWrap, Refn’s female-focused horror film has entered negotiations with rising starlet Elle Fanning, who will play in the picture a model that’s caught in a fatalistic spiral of “beauty and demise.”
“Elle Fanning s a super cool wonder woman and I look forward to going on a terrifying trip with her into The Neon Demon,” Refn said to the site.
Refn, who also directed the Pusher trilogy, broke into Hollywood in a big way with Drive, which I would argue is as much an urban western as it is a nihilistic noir, and is working again in that world with Mary Laws, the first-time screenwriter of The Neon Demon. He is also the director of the doubly fantastic and morbid Bronson and Valhalla Rising.
The casting is also interesting for Fanning since she also captured a very coveted role in Ben Affleck’s upcoming Dennis Lehane adaptation, Live By Night. With both films on her schedule (The Neon Demon is set to begin production during the first quarter of this year), it makes us wonder if she is still in the running for the Jean Grey part in X-Men: Apocalypse, which she had previously been linked to, along with Chloe Grace Moretz and Hailee Steinfeld.
We’ll keep you posted on both films as they develop.
