Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling are already in Thailand, underway with production on their follow-up, the neo-western Only God Forgives and now they’ve locked in a distributor. Although it looked like FilmDistrict, the distributor of last year’s romance/action sleeper hit, was set to come back, the deal was never closed. Deadline is now reporting that The Weinstein Company’s new label Radius will distribute it later this year and we’ve got some more details to go along with it. But first, check out the official synopsis.
Julian (Gosling) lives in exile in Bangkok where he runs a Thai boxing club as a front for the family’s drugs smuggling operation. When Julian’s brother Billy is killed their mother, Jenna (Kristen Scott Thomas), arrives in the city. She wants revenge and forces Julian to find the killer. Julian’s contacts in the criminal underworld lead him directly to The Angel of Vengeance, a retired police officer who knows everything and who is both Judge and Punisher. Jenna demands that Julian kill The Angel of Vengeance, an act that will cost him dearly.
We already know the film takes place mostly at night and the style is a combination of this last three films: Drive, Bronson and Valhalla Rising. This new report lets us know Forgives “has way more explosive violence” than Drive and there is major swordplay, with “a lot of slicing and dicing.” I know many were turned off by the bursts of violence in his last films, but I honestly can’t wait to see this one, if its place on our most-anticipated films of the year list is any indication.
It will be interesting to see how Radius handles this one, since they are said to also be distributing films on the VOD format. Nonetheless with their parent company also holding Django Unchained, Cogan’s Trade and The Master, they now have the strongest batch of the films I can’t wait to see this year. If the previously rumored fall release date is still in the cards, we’ve stil got awhile to go, but check back for all updates.
Update: We’ve got our first look at Gosling in the film thanks to Wild Bunch (via The Playlist).
What do you think about the new details on Forgives? Is this distributor a good fit?