After only being attached to the film for less than two months, Variety is reporting that David Ayer (Suicide Squad, Street Kings, End of Watch) has departed the director’s chair on Universal Pictures‘ Scarface remake. Apparently Universal’s aggressive schedule for the film, plus Ayer’s commitment to finish and publicize Netflix’s Bright, caused him to exit. Diego Luna (Rogue One, Blood Father) is still attached to play the title gangster.
David Ayer was intended to replace the previously-attached Antoine Fuqua, who departed due to schedule issues with The Equalizer 2. The next film for Ayer will be his Netflix fantasy film Bright, starring Will Smith, Joel Edgerton and Noomi Rapace, which will drop on the streaming service in December. He’s also has DC Films’ Suicide Squad spin-off Gotham City Sirens in development.
An explosive reimagining of one of the most iconic sagas in film history, Universal Pictures’ Scarface will shoot from a script polished by four-time Academy Award winners Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo). A Bluegrass Films and Global Produce production, the drama will be produced by Marc Shmuger (Lucy), Scott Stuber (Ted) and Dylan Clark (Planet of the Apes series). Martin Bregman, who produced the 1983 film, serves in the same capacity in the telling of this generation’s Scarface, which the studio first brought to the screen in 1932.
The first theatrical Scarface made it to theaters in 1932 from director Howard Hawks and told the story of an Irish immigrant’s rise to power as a gangster in 1920s Chicago. The film was famously remade in 1983, directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone with Al Pacino in the lead role, shifting the focus to a Cuban refugee rising to power as a gangster in 1980s Miami.
Universal has dated the Scarface remake for Friday, August 10, 2018.
Who would you like to see step in and direct the new Scarface movie? Should they even make a third version of the movie at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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