While most of us are still reeling from the fact that Drive, one of the best films of the year, nabbed a grand total of one Oscar nominations (for Best Sound Editing, no less), director Nicolas Winding Refn seems undeterred. The Danish filmmaker is hard at work on his follow-up, the Thailand-set Only God Forgives starring Ryan Gosling, and he seems keen on using his newfound success to further (pardon the pun) drive his career forward. The director recently gave a brief interview in which he was asked about the possibility of a sequel to Drive. While I all but expected the director to outright state that he has no intention of continuing Driver’s story, his answer took me a bit by surprise. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.As you may or may not know, Drive was based on the novel of the same name by author James Sallis. While it deviated quite a bit from the source material, Refn’s film used many of the same situations and overarching plot from Sallis’ novel. The author recently announced that he would be releasing a sequel to Drive, called Driven, this April. When asked in an interview with ShortList (via The Playlist) whether or not he had any plans to adapt the sequel, Refn responded thusly:

“Well I think that... hmm. Let me just say that I haven’t made up my mind yet. Stranger things have happened...”

Now I understand that this is about as "non-answer" as you can get, but I pretty much assumed that Refn hadn’t given a sequel to Drive a second thought. Though it certainly sounds like the chances of a feature adaptation are slim, it’s interesting that Refn hasn’t taken the option completely off the table just yet. The plot of Driven takes place six years after the events of the first book, and centers on someone wanting Driver dead (obviously). I’m not entirely sure Refn's film begs for a follow-up, but I can’t say I wouldn’t relish the thought of returning to that universe once again with Refn at the helm and Gosling behind the steering wheel.

In addition to that tidbit of non-information regarding a Drive sequel, Refn also revealed that he was actually quite keen on directing an episode of the wildly popular British series Doctor Who. So why didn’t he? The powers-that-be said “no”:

“I would have loved to direct Doctor Who but they didn’t want me — they turned me down last year. Maybe if they revive Blake’s 7 I could do that. I love it. It’s great. That could be fun to update.”

I’m assuming that now, given Refn’s clout, producers of the series might change their minds. However, the director is pretty busy for the foreseeable future. He’s currently filming Only God Forgives in Thailand (which also stars Kristin Scott Thomas), and he and Gosling are developing an ambitious remake of Logan’s Run. Whether or not a Drive sequel figures in there somewhere is anyone's guess, though I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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