The “Maniac Cop” Remake Falls Apart?
The proposed remake of genre great Larry Cohen’s “Maniac Cop” appears to be dead.
The original film followed a former highly decorated cop who was framed by his department and eventually murdered in prison. His hatred makes him come back to life, where he stalks New York and murders both guilty and innocent alike.
“Drive” director Nicolas Winding Refn has spent years trying to get a remake off the ground and it was confirmed in March the project had received a greenlight from a script by Ed Brubaker.
That’s not the case anymore Cohen tells
Birth.Movies.Death, saying the project isn’t moving ahead after all – and he’s not unhappy about it:
“As far as I know, that’s not happening anymore, and if it is, they might be trying to keep it a secret, as they’d owe me $250,000. Ed Brubaker wrote the script, and I’ve read the script, and it’s not very good. Ed Brubaker is a very good writer of comic books, I think. But if he’s written a good script for a movie, I haven’t read it.
I wrote six new scenes for the picture, based on what I’d read. And, had I written the whole script, the movie would probably be happening, as the script would be good. I wrote three films for Bill Lustig, though they changed a lot of [Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence] and Bill got fired from it…and I would’ve written the fourth movie, had they asked. But they didn’t, and now it’s not getting made.”
Cohen also spoke a bit about the new take’s plot, comparing it to Neil Jordan’s 1986 film “Mona Lisa”. Cohen is currently busying prepping a ten-episode anthology series to be produced by J.J. Abrams.