Charles Melton is following in Ryan Gosling’s footsteps and collaborating with iconic auteur Nicolas Winding Refn. Melton, who recently starred in Alex Garland’s “Warfare,” is set to lead Refn’s thriller “Her Private Hell,” as Neon announced. Sophie Thatcher, Kristine Froseth, and Havana Rose Liu are also starring.
Refn will be writing and directing the feature, which is expected to start shooting this summer. The “Drive” and “Only God Forgives” director who is famously against streaming “content” has partnered with Neon to co-finance and distribute the film.
Refn confirmed in 2024 that he would be making his return to helming features almost a decade after 2016 film “The Neon Demon.” At the time, the unnamed project was announced to be shooting in Tokyo in 2025; it seems this could be “Her Private Hell.”
“It’s a really interesting time to make movies because it’s such a chaotic situation,” Refn told Variety of the film. “So going back and making a theatrical feature film again is almost like — not starting over — but with all the changes in our societies in the last five years and technology changes, it almost seems like the right thing to do for me.”
While no plot details were revealed at the time, Refn teased that the film “will have a lot of glitter and lot of sex and violence.” As if we’d expect anything else from the auteur…
Refn is also working on a gaming project, as he considers it the “only art form that continues to evolve with possibilities creatively,” adding, “In a way, had the Lumiere brothers, when they invented film, invented computer games first, what would the world look like?”
However, Refn also said that “feature film is still the mother of all mediums” and with his latest, he’s excited to “re-experience that process.” The director continued, “I think it’s hard for me to escape my self-indulgent identity in creativity. So there will always be me in it.”
“Her Private Hell” star Melton is a “Riverdale” alum and earned critical acclaim for Todd Haynes’ “May December.” In addition to “Warfare,” Melton will appear in “Beef” Season 2. Thatcher, who got her start in “Yellowjackets,” recently led horror films “Companion” and “Heretic.”
