Director Adam Wingard has been tapped to direct the Face/Off remake currently in development at Paramount. The project has been in development since 2019, but understandably so, as action mastermind John Woo's original is as iconic today as it was in 1997.
The original Face/Off starred Nicolas Cage and John Travolta at the height of their gonzo acting prowess, playing a criminal mastermind and FBI agent respectively, who quite literally switch faces. Famously, the pair shot the end of the film first, having no reference footage for how they would be playing their own characters before they canonically switched faces. The result was one of the most insane movies ever filmed, and Face/Off has remained in the action-movie hall of fame since. The question has always been what two actors could possibly replace Cage and Travolta, with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman being recent favorites, but first Paramount has picked out their director, perhaps impressed with his work on the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong.
THR has reported that Adam Wingard will direct the Face/Off remake, and will apparently start a new script with his frequent collaborator Simon Barrett. A script had been previously produced by 22 Jump Street writer Oren Uziel, but there's no word as of yet whether that draft now has any bearing on Wingard and Barrett's version.
Adam Wingard is an interesting choice, as he's been mostly a horror creator. He's also had a number of jobs throughout his career, serving as writer, editor, and even composer on various projects he also directed. Godzilla vs. Kong will be his first true action movie, but he must have done a good job to be chosen to fill John Woo's boots. Looking back, Wingard's career has been a bit of a mixed bag. Starting in the mumblegore horror scene, he found critical and commercial success with You're Next and The Guest, and then ran that momentum directly into a wall with the underwhelming Blair Witch and the poorly received live-action adaptation of Death Note. It'll be interesting to see where a generally horror-focused duo takes Face/Off, an inherently disturbing concept that leaves room for decent body horror.
We've seen horror directors do some surprisingly great work with action movies recently, with David F. Sandberg's Shazam! being a good example. What will be much more interesting is seeing who Wingard picks to be his stars. The legacy of Face/Off is one of absolutely bonkers decisions, both in its visuals and, of course, in its performances. It's hard to imagine any new version of the movie will manage to recreate that energy, especially removed from the gonzo 90s action landscape. Maybe Adam Wingard was explicitly chosen to take the project in a completely new direction.
Source: THR
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