Today in Hollywood’s unnecessary rebooting of cinematic classics, Universal is moving forward with a remake of Scarface.
Riding high on the success of Straight Outta Compton, screenwriter Jonathan Herman has been hired to pen the rewrite. For director, Universal has tagged rising Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, who is currently helming biopics on Pablo Neruda and Jackie Kennedy.
For those unaware, the Al Pacino-starring version of Scarface released in 1983 is actually a remake of a 1932 film of the same name. That version was inspired by the rise and fall of Al Capone, whereas фplayed the role of a fictional Cuban drug kingpin named Tony Montana.
The new adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter, will be set in Los Angeles and explore an immigrant’s rise in the criminal underworld.
For his part, Pacino has already thrown his support behind the film. “Oh, it’s fine,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s part of what we do. We remake things.”
News of the remake first surfaced earlier this year, but was recently brought back to the forefront thanks to Reddit.