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The Coen Brothers Co-wrote the Upcoming 'Scarface' Remake
Can you imagine a Scarface remake from the Coen brothers? It’s not like they haven’t done a remake before — see their takes on The Ladykillers and True Grit. And it is like they’re masters of crime films, both serious and comedic, from their debut with Blood Simple through their Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, not including movies they’ve only scripted. Well, we are actually going to get a smidgen of what a Scarface made by Joel and Ethan would be like, as that’s another project they’ve co-written.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the duo recently polished the script for the latest cinematic incarnation of the gangster story, originally a novel by Armitage Trail, loosely based on the life of Al Capone. First there was the Howard Hawks adaptation with Paul Muni in 1932, then the Brian DePalma-helmed update in 1983 starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee turned drug kingpin. This next version will star Diego Luna as a Mexican immigrant and is set in L.A.
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Currently the new Scarface has nobody at the helm, as it recently lost Antoine Fuqua as director. While it would be amazing for the Coens to take over the gig, THR reports that two other filmmakers are meeting with Universal execs for the job. One is Peter Berg, who in the last year has churned out both Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day, each based on a tragic true story. The other is David MacKenzie, whose Hell or High Water is presently nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, and produced by Berg.
The Coens’ polish comes after a go at the script last fall from Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire, The Wolf of Wall Street). A previous draft was penned by Straight Outta Compton co-writer Jonathan Herman. The brothers have been doing a lot of writing work on other people’s projects lately, after decades of only publicly doing their own material since co-writing Sam Raimi’s Crimewave in 1985. In recent years their names have been on The Bridge of Spies, Unbroken, Gambit and the upcoming Suburbicon.
Universal will be deciding on a director for the Scarface remake soon, given the studio just set its release date for August 10, 2018.
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