David Ayer (Suicide Squad) was developing a reboot of Brian de Palma’s 1983 crime classic Scarface back in 2017, but his vision of the film ultimately ended up not getting made. During a recent interview with Total Film, Ayer talked about the project and how his take was too dark for Universal Pictures. He explained that while the script he wrote was one of his best, the studio wanted something more fun when it came to a story about the drug trade. Ayer said:
“One of the best scripts I’ve ever written was my ‘Scarface’ draft. It gets passed around in Hollywood, underground. It’s funny when people talk about the project. ‘Is it the Ayer script?’ ‘No, it’s somebody else.’ ‘Oh, OK.’”
He went on to talk about the story he was looking to tell and what the studio wanted:
“It wasn’t too violent. Violence – I can cover it. If someone gets shot, I can photograph it where a head explodes and have a hard R, and it’s not going to alienate people. That’s easy. That’s filmmaker 101. I created this rich, soulful journey through the drug trade, and kind of what it is. The studio just wanted something more fun.”
It makes you wonder if the executives at Universal even watched the original movie. But, they obviously wanted a broader-appealing Scarface movie. When talking about the Ayer said:
“They want to capture as big of an audience as possible. I f –king love Universal. Amazing people. I had this really honest conversation about the movie they wish they had, and the movie that I wished to make. There’s a lot of daylight between us. It’s just easier to be like, ‘Let’s park this.’”
So, Ayer eventually ended up walking away from the project, and it still hasn’t gotten off the ground. Scarface tells the story of the rise and fall of a gangster named Tony Montana. De Palma’s film starred Al Pacino in the lead role. The reboot would’ve taken place in L.A. instead of Miami.
Would you have liked to see David Ayer make his Scarface movie?
