Nicolas Winding Refn’s Maniac Cop Remake Is Moving Forward

80s schlock horror mainstay Maniac Cop is headed back to the big screen, thanks to the director of Drive.

There have been rumblings of a remake of William Lustig’s deliriously sleazy Maniac Cop for ages now. Back in 2015, Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning director John Hyams was working on a take with a screenplay by comics legend Ed Brubaker (Gotham Central, The Winter Soldier) and Drive and Only God Forgives director Nicolas Winding Refn on producing duties. For whatever reason, that never came to fruition.

Then we were getting a Maniac Cop TV series from HBO and French outfit Canal+, with the same creative team in place. That, too, foundered.

But nothing ever dies in Hollywood, not even grindhouse stories of undead cops stalking the streets of dirty ol’ New York City. In a recent interview with Icons Of Fright, William Lustig, director of the original 1988 flick, confirmed that not only is the remake still on the cards, it’ll go into production later this year.

“Nic has it as his next project that will shoot in the fall,” Lustig said, which you could take as meaning that Refn will be directing the film. The wording is a touch ambiguous, though.

For those who have never savored the pleasures of the OG Maniac Cop, the late, lantern-jawed Robert Z’Dar stars as the titular felonious flatfoot, an undead monstrosity in uniform, whose rampage of revenge forces fellow cops Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins to hunt him down. Made on the smell of an oily rag, it’s a legit B movie gem.

Lustig goes on to explain how the original plans for a remake fell apart, saying, “What happened with HBO was, HBO got sold to Discovery, and Discovery – after they’d spent over a million dollars developing the scripts for the series – Discovery says, ‘We’re not in the Maniac Cop business.’

“They gave all the scripts back to us, so we didn’t have to pay a turnaround, so that was it with HBO. Now it’s moving ahead. I can’t announce the company, but it will become known.”

So, there you go. Take it with a pinch of salt, because production plans fall apart all the time, but if you’re a Maniac Cop fan, this is the best news we’ve had in a while. In the meantime, check out the whole interview below – Lustig knows how to spin a yarn, that’s for sure.