Nicolas Winding Refn fans have been waiting for well over a year for the Danish auteur’s Amazon television series “Too Old to Die Young.” While the Miles Teller-starring drama series is expected to debut sometime in 2019, there have been little to no updates about the project in months. Fortunately, Refn’s longtime collaborator and film composer Cliff Martinez dropped a major reveal about “Too Old to Die Young” during an interview with ScreenDaily at the Rotterdam Film Festival: All 10 episodes of the show are 90 minutes or around 90 minutes long.
“For me the biggest change is just the endurance to do what I think of as a ten-hour movie – or a 16-hour movie in the case of ‘Too Old To Die Young,’” Martinez said when asked about the difference between working on a streaming series versus a film. “It’s ten episodes that are around 90 minutes a piece. I warned Nic Winding Refn, you better drink a lot of coffee and get a lot of sleep when you can.”
“‘Too Old To Die Young’ has gone on for a year,” Martinez added. “For me the challenge has been to not get burned out and jaded and complacent, but to try to stay engaged and focused for that much time.”
Refn is no stranger to making feature-length television episodes, having directed a 2007 episode of “Miss Marple” for PBS and Britain’s ITV. Refn’s installment, “Miss Marple: Nemesis,” starred Geraldine McEwan as the title character, plus Richard E. Grant as her nephew, and ran for one hour and 23 minutes. Refn also is an uncredited director on “Miss Marple: Towards Zero,” which ran one hour and 25 minutes. Each installment of “Miss Marple” is standalone, however, which makes “Too Old to Die Young” Refn’s longest form of storytelling to date.
“Too Old to Die Young” stars Miles Teller as a grieving police officer forced to investigate Los Angeles’ criminal underworld, which includes working-class hit men, Yakuza soldiers, cartel assassins sent from Mexico, and Russian mafia captains. The supporting cast includes Billy Baldwin, Jena Malone, John Hawkes, Callie Hernandez, and August Aguilera.
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