It was announced several years ago that William Lustig’s Maniac Cop was getting remade, with Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) producing, Ed Brubaker (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) writing and John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) directing. We last heard about the project earlier this year, when Hyams noted it was still happening.

In a new chat with The Movie Crypt (via Entertainment Weekly), Hyams just provided another update on the timely remake, specifically touching upon the tone he’s going for.

“It will be a completely different thing tonally,” Hyams told the show. “I think that’s why I was hired. I think the reason why Nick was interested in me was because he saw what I had done with Universal Soldier, in the sense that I took it and made it my own and went completely off the reservation with it. Nick Refn loves exploitation cinema as much as the next guy, but he also is not interested in paying homage to things. He loves Maniac Cop, he loves the idea of it, he loves everything it represents, but he has no intention of making a tribute story.”

“We’ve spent the last several years now developing this thing and… what we’re trying to do is make something that we’re taking the ideas of Maniac Cop and exploring them in a deep way,” Hyams continued. “Our hope is that this is something that people who are fans of the original will find great pleasure in what we’re doing, because if you’re into genre storytelling you’re going to be into it, but I also think we’re telling a story about something bigger than that, which is really the breakdown of society.… It’s a big story that needed a larger canvas.”