Nicolas Winding Refn says Amazon intentionally “buried” Too Old To Die Young
"They took all my marketing money away because they were afraid that the show would reflect badly on Amazon," says the Drive director
Aux News Nicolas Winding Refn
Fans of Nicolas Winding Refn know the director’s affinity for exploitation films and grimy underworlds. The Drive auteur established a career that unflinchingly looks at the gears that grind the minds and bodies of people caught up in them. However, when giving the director license to create Too Old To Die Young, it seems Amazon was not totally up to speed on Refn’s work.
Miles Teller led Too Old To Die Young as the detective-by-day, vigilante-killer-by-night Martin Jones, who finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into a grimy and violent Los Angeles underground. Upon wrapping the series, Refn says Amazon squandered the marketing campaign for the miniseries, fearing the typically polarizing director’s work would once again be polarizing to audiences.
“Well, they took all my marketing money away because they were afraid that the show would reflect badly on Amazon,” Refn tells Vulture. “They told me that directly. They were so shocked by it. I was like, ‘What’s so shocking?’ They said, ‘It’s going to make us look bad.’ And I said, ‘But I don’t think anyone’s going to look at you at all.’”
“Certain parts of Hollywood are so self-absorbed that they think they’re at the center of the universe,” Refn continues. “The rule of fear is very dangerous. Amazon released the show, but they said, ‘We will bury you.’ And so they did. However, you can’t bury a diamond.”
The streamer notably only gave critics access to the fourth and fifth episodes of the series for review ahead of its release. Despite rumors of the series’ “cancellation” by Amazon following season one, Refn says Too Old To Die Young was intended as a limited series as there were limits on how much the Danish director had to say about the state of America. Even if he did, it seems unlikely Amazon would have given him more money to further the story.
“That could only be a self-contained piece,” Refn says. “After 13 hours I had nothing left to say about America. I was drained. And 13 hours is almost two seasons. Three seasons if you look at television nowadays.”
He’s now taken his talents to Netflix, which just released another neon-soaked, gritty series from Refn titled Copenhagen Cowboy. Despite his propensity to drastically change storylines during filming, Refn says Netflix has been happy with their working relationship. While a second season of Copenhagen Cowboy has not been announced, Refn says he has “already begun other adventures with Netflix” and has plans for a season two arc.
36 Comments
However, you can’t bury a diamond.Sure you can!
You can bury it in Amazon Prime packaging?
*Aladdin has entered the chat*
(stands, applauds)
Well, it would take several metric tons of dirt and— wait, are we talking about the baseball field or a crystalline form of carbon?
That’s kind of their natural state!
You can, of course, bury a turd. After millions of years of geological time in the extreme heat and pressure of the Earth’s crust, it will become a diamond. And that will be the ideal time to catch up on Nicolas Refn’s TV show!
Maybe geology wasn’t his thing.
Gerbils are usually friendly and happy to interact with people, but they do not really enjoy being picked up.
ugh hate miles teller
I really wanted to like this, but it was so.incredibly.slow.like.really.slow.I like slow burn stuff, but this was like watching Boyhood in real time.
The pacing was confounding and atrocious. And I am someone who enjoys slow, patient scenes. The dialog in this show was interminable. The pacing paired with Miles Teller’s completely flat affect…jesus, what a combination. He is right, though. Amazon shouldn’t have buried it; They should have aborted it.
I’ve been mostly enjoying it, but at a pace of about one episode a month.
One episode feels like a month.
There was lots of stuff in there that I really, really liked, but it was such a chore to actually watch it that I only got half way through.Also, what is Refn whining about? It’s not exactly a show that feels compromised. If they give you the money to make nearly 13 hours of some of the most uncommercial and idiosyncratic TV ever, you don’t get to complain that it wasn’t marketed heavily enough to people who would quit after 10 minutes anyway.
I often wondered about this. because despite even watching the first episode it was never served to me again nor do i ever see it on ‘continue watching’ section. i had no real desire to watch it any further – certainly not without being prompted. but it still blows my mind that they seemed to bury it after the first few days.
Yes, that’s absolutely what happened. Not that the show was terrible and even people who are normally into his particular style didn’t like it very much and amazon saw that coming and decided not to waste marketing money on it.
I always thought he would be a great director for an Alien Nation remake/reboot, with Mads Mikkelsen as the alien cop and Ryan Gosling as the earth cop.
God, this show is fucking awful. I swear his direction was “pause for 3 seconds before responding to every line of dialog.” It was artificial and intentionally dull and bad. It cemented my general confusion about the persistence of Miles Teller’s career. As in, why does he have one?
I’m assuming he’s another nepo baby but his dad is just really, really quiet about it.
This joke took me a second, but on reflection it is excellent.
Thanks! In case I left any doubt, I share your wonder at his continued popularity with casting directors.
Well, shame on Amazon Prime for being afraid of challenging programming.But shame on Refn for making such an inert, joyless slog. After his last few films, I’d love to revisit VALHALLA RISING and see if my memory has tricked me about how beautiful I remember that being. And there’s always the giddy pleasures of BRONSON. Oh well.
Doctor Heartman said that?
Not deep enough from what I saw of it.
Polarizing? Boring is polarizing? I try but watching NWR’s work is just a waste of time. Boringly slow, pan shots everywhere, color filters on all the lights, barely any dialogue, no plot, no story. I mean, why do studios give him money to do this again and again?
“Polarizing?”
Yes. 70% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Other people loved it, you didn’t.THAT’S WHAT POLARIZING MEANS.
13 episodes is one modern American season. Not two. Sure as shit not three.
“Upon wrapping the series, Refn says Amazon squandered the marketing campaign”
They didn’t squander anything, they “took all my marketing money away”. It’s a fucking quote. Squander means waste, and they didn’t waste it. They took it away.
There’s no way in hell Amazon was worried about “looking bad,” other than maybe being embarrassed about spending a decent chunk of change on this interminable dreck, which has been all of Refn’s work from Only God Forgives onward. Copenhagen Cowboy is somehow even worse.
They distributed Neon Demon, so I can’t imagine they didn’t know about Winding Refn’s usualy shtick.
After Drive I had such high hopes for Only God Forgives. And this is why I no longer waste energy on hope.
I’ve been wanting to watch this, based mainly on the involvement from Ed Brubaker (whose comic work I will devour blindly, no questions), but having not read any reviews and also forgotten when it was releasing, these comments are giving me pause, at best.
Meanwhile…over at Netflix.
I might come off as a mere contrarian saying this, given some of the other comments, but I really rather liked “Too Old to Die Young.” Slow as hell? Sure. Deeply absorbing, confrontational to the point of being downright uncomfortable in places (something I rather like about a lot of Refn’s work), and rich in subtext (which… yeah, I’m going to get called pretentious, but I don’t care, go for it). I’m really glad it got made, and that I got to see it.