Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance talks up his next film

Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance has been talking up his next movie, The Place Beyond the Pines , in a chat with The Playlist.

It was announced a couple of months back that Cianfrance would be reteaming with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling for the movie, though details were scarce.

Cianfrance told The Playlist: "It’s a film that I started writing about four years ago. Right before my son Cody was born, this idea came to me about the transformative power of fatherhood and the idea of what happens through generations, the things that get passed down."

"It’s very much inspired by the books of Jack London—it’s kind of a Darwinistic idea of survival through ancestry."

On Gosling's character, Cianfrance said “Ryan’s going to play Luke, a motorcycle stunt rider who finds out he has a baby and he tries to become a father.” The actor is said to be extremely keen on doing his own bike stunts for the movie.

Perhaps most intriguingly of all, when it comes to genre and reference points, Cianfrance offered: "It’s kind of an epic movie."

"It takes place over a couple of generations and it’s kind of a crime story, kind of a mystery. I’ve had people tell me they feel like its The Deer Hunter meets The Godfather ."

Thankfully the director says that he's hoping to start shooting this summer, so we won't have to wait too long for this.

Pines sounds like it'll be extremely different to Blue Valentine , but no less superb. File this under 'Hell Yeah!'

Oh, and is it just us or is Cianfrance the spitting image of Ryan Gosling circa 2031?

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.