Universal’s previously announced remake of Scarface, source of so many classic hip-hop samples and novelty Zippos, now has a writer tasked with putting some words other than “Scarface” down on the page—like, and we’re just spitballing here, “motherfucker” and “[MACHINE GUN FIRE.]” The chosen scribe: David Ayer, best known for The Fast And The Furious and Training Day, in addition to several other undistinguished crime dramas that are not Training Day, such as Dark Blue, S.W.A.T., and Harsh Times. And it’s just that sort of unflinching, generically grimy vision that Ayer plans to bring to the new Scarface, with the writer telling Deadline that he’d studied both Howard Hawks’ 1932 original and the Brian De Palma-directed, Oliver Stone-scripted 1983 version and discovered that “both films had a specificity of place, there was unapologetic violence, and a main character who socially scared the shit out of people, but who had his own moral code. Each was faithful to the underworld of its time.” In that respect, he plans to offer his own take on our contemporary underworld, which, judging by Ayer’s oeuvre, we’re guessing will involve corrupt cops ’n’ cartels ’n’ stuff, and will have as much to do with the other Scarface as that blacklight velvet Al Pacino painting you can pick up at the flea market. But it will still have unapologetic violence!
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