Amazon confirmed Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young for a 10-episode first season back in February 2017.
Two years after Amazon’s heartening announcement, fans are still eagerly awaiting the launch of the series and are anxiously looking out for fresh updates that will shed light on series details that have so far been kept under wraps.
Recent updates have rekindled hope that we won’t have to wait much longer for Too Old to Die Young to launch on Amazon. The musician and composer Cliff Martinez recently shared new major details that sparked an online buzz.
Ahead of the release of Too Old to Die Young, we have compiled everything we know so far about the highly anticipated crime drama series, including release date, teasers and trailers, cast and plot.
Too Old to Die Young release date
Amazon has not yet officially announced a release date for Too Old to Die Young, but the series is expected to debut on Amazon Video in the spring of 2019.
Series co-writer and showrunner Ed Brubaker confirmed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in October 2018 that Too Old to Die Young will launch in the spring of 2019.
He revealed that the editors were still working on the second half of the season and teased that fans should expect to see the best expression so far of Refn’s unique neon-noir style made familiar by the Danish film director’s previous works, such as Drive (2011) and Only God Forgives (2013).
“The show will launch in the spring (of 2019), I believe, on Amazon,” Brubaker said. “[The editors] are still cutting the second half of the season, but what I’ve seen is amazing.”
“It’s the most Nicolas Winding Refn thing that ever existed, honestly,” he enthused. “It’s stylish and shocking, it has some of the best cinematography ever for television.”
Too Old to Die Young: General details
Too Old to Die Young is written by Nicolas Winding Refn in collaboration with the award-winning comic book and TV writer Ed Brubaker.
Refn directed all the 10 episodes of the series which stars Miles Teller and Billy Baldwin.
Refn and Brubaker are also executive producing the series for Amazon with Jeffrey Stott. Rachel Dik and Alexander H. Gayner are also serving as producers.
The series is set in Los Angeles and follows a police officer, who, grieving the murder of his partner, finds himself plunged into the criminal underbelly of the city.
The first look images (see below) for Too Old to Die Young were released in February 2018. Refn released the first teaser trailer (see below) for the series on Twitter in May 2018.
The first look images and the teaser trailer showcase Refn’s continuing fascination with the exploration and stylish visual portrayal of the seedier aspects of the criminal underworld.
Too Old to Die Young: Production
Filming of the series began in Los Angeles in November 2017. Filming of the first episode was completed by mid-January 2018.
Additional filming started in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 2018, after which the production crew returned to Los Angeles for more filming which finally wrapped up in August 2018.
Episodes of Too Old To Die Young will run for 90 minutes
Musician and composer Cliff Martinez, who composed the score for the series, recently shared new details in an interview with Screen Daily at the recent Rotterdam Film Festival.
According to Martinez, who has worked with Refn on several previous projects, including Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon (2016), each of the 10 episodes of Too Old to Die Young will be 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 to compare his experience scoring the series with his work on films.
And as if to warn fans planning to binge watch the entire 10-episode season over one weekend, he said, “It’s ten episodes that are around 90 minutes apiece. 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 continued. “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.”
How the decision to make a TV series with feature-length episodes pans out will depend on the quality of the material. Refn fans are hoping that the episodes would be thrilling and engrossing enough to hold viewers’ attention for 90 minutes.
The fact that Refn has previous experience making feature-length TV episodes gives hope. He directed two episodes of ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple TV series (2007) based on Agatha Christie’s murder mystery novels featuring the character Miss Marple.
The first Miss Marple episode Refn directed, Towards Zero, ran for 83 minutes. The second episode, Nemesis, ran for 85 minutes. However, unlike the upcoming episodes of Too Old to Die Young, the Miss Marple series consisted of standalone episodes.
Refn’s other writing and directing credits include Valhalla Rising (2009), Only God Forgives (2013), and The Neon Demon (2016) released by Amazon.
He also directed Drive (2011).
In 2018, Refn launched the free streaming service byNWR.com, which features rare films.
Series co-writer Ed Brubaker is known for his semi-autobiographical crime fiction comic series Lowlife (1992-1995), the graphic novel The Fall (2001), and Scene of Crime (1999). He has also written superhero comics for DC and Marvel, including Daredevil, Batman, Uncanny X-Men, Catwoman and Captain America.
Too Old to Die Young teasers and trailers
In April 2018, two months after Amazon confirmed it had ordered 10-episodes of Too Old to Die Young, Refn took to Twitter to post a 30-second clip showing a graphic design, Refn’s name, the title of the upcoming series, with the British punk group The Bollock Brothers’ The Last Supper playing.
Fans assumed that the design, color palette and choice of music were meant as a foretaste of what to expect of Too Old To Die Young in line with what we have seen in Refn’s previous works, such as The Neon Demon (2016) and Only God Forgives (2013).
Refn has also shared several behind-the-scene photos and videos of the upcoming series on his personal Twitter account.
In a November 2017 tweet, Refn appeared to hint that fans should expect a Neon Demon Crossover in Too Old to Die Young.
“Dear Friends! The Neon Demon will appear as One Eye in Too Old To Die Young,” he tweeted.
But it remains uncertain what the controversial film director’s cryptic tweet actually meant.
He debuted the first teaser trailer for the series back in May 2018.
“Dear Friends..! Here’s a Monday explosion,” he tweeted on May 21, 2018. “The sneak peek of #TooOldToDieYoung I showed at Saturday’s @Cinespia screening of #DRIVE. Please follow the continuing production at @TOTDYTV..!”
The teaser, nearly two minutes long, is a compilation of images that give fans an idea of the quality and visual styles to expect of Too Old to Die Young.
Too Old to Die Young cast
Refn has assembled a star studded cast for Too Old to Die Young. The main cast includes Miles Teller (Whiplash, War Dogs, Divergent series, Thank You for Your Service and Fantastic Four) as the leading character Martin and Nell Tiger Free (Game of Thrones’ Myrcella Baratheon) as Janey.
Other cast members include Billy Baldwin (Flatliners, Gossip Girl, Parenthood, MacGyver, 30 Rock), Celestino
Also cast are John Hawkes (portrayed Sol Star in HBO’s Deadwood), Cristina Rodlo (Miss Bala) as Yaritza, Augusto Aguilera (The Predator) as Jesus, Callie Hernandez (The Blair Witch, La La Land, The Endless, Alien: Covenant ), Babs Olusanmokun (The Defenders) as Damian, Alexander Gomez (13 Reasons Why) as Guard, Carlotta Montanari as Magdalena, and Dereck Seven Smith (Dallas, Skin in the Game) as Raheem.
Recurring cast members include Hart Bochner (Breaking Away, Terror Train, Supergirl, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Die Hard, Break Up, Liberty Stands Still, Carrie) as Lieutenancy and George Payne.
Amazon announced in March 2017 that Miles Teller had been cast in the leading role of Martin, a police officer who finds himself “entangled in the world of assassins” after the murder of his partner.
The rest of the main cast was announced in November 2017.
The showrunners announced in February 2018 that Hart Brochner had been cast in a recurring role. Refn announce on Twitter in August 2018 that George Payne had also been cast in a recurring role.
Too Old to Die Young plot
Much of the plot of Too Old to Die Young remains under wraps, but according to the official plot summary, Too Old to Die Young follows a police officer who, mourning the death of his partner, journeys through the Los Angeles underworld populated by hitmen, Yakuza soldiers, Mexican cartel assassins, Russian mafia bosses and gangs of teenage killers.
Based on the teasers and the synopsis, fans can expect a fast-paced thriller focused on a cop’s encounter with the criminal underworld, and showcasing Refn’s unique style that emphasizes extreme violence sugarcoated in stylish imagery.
The series will likely be similar to the Pusher trilogy (1996-2005) — directed and written by Refn with Jens Dahl — which explored the Copenhagen underworld.