Luca Guadagnino to direct the 'Scarface' reboot
Who will play the next Tony Montana?
May 15th, 2020
It's official: Luca Guadagnino will direct a Scarface reboot. Produced by Universal Pictures, the movie will be a reimagining of 1983 classic by Brian DePalma (starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer), and it will always be set in Los Angeles. Joel & Ethan Coen (The Big Lebowsky, Fargo, No Country for Old Men and many great cults), among the most celebrated authors of their generation, wrote the final version of the script.
The Italian director follows Howard Hawks (Scarface, 1932) and DePalma in one of the most important traditions in cinema: the first two Scarface made history. That's a great result for Guadagnino who, following the success of Call Me By Your Name, today might be the most famous Italian director in all the world. His success speaks for itself about the slowness of Italian cinema in understanding its talents: at his directorial debut, Italian critic dismissed him as a young, ambitious dreamer with no talent and no future.
Besides being the main responsible for Timothée Chalamet's success (he was a perfect no one before being cast as Elio in CMBYN), in the past few years, Guadagnino has worked with some of the greatest contemporary actors. The first who believed in him was Tilda Swinton, starting from I Am Love (then in A Bigger Splash, Suspiria), but also Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash, Suspiria) and Mia Goth (Suspiria, The Staggering Girl). It could be easily pointed that Luca Guadagnino is for cinema what Ryan Murphy is for American television. It will be interesting to see how a director with undeniable queer taste will re-imagine one of the cruellest stories of toxic masculinity in cinema.
The hype to guess who will wear Tony Montana's shoes is already on fire. Could it be Timmy? For now, the actor doesn't seem to be very busy (even if it's been confirmed that a sequel to CMBYN is on the work). There's no doubt that Dakota Johnson (who lately signed for the new film directed by Olivia Wilde, alongside Florence Pugh and Shia LaBeouf) would be perfect for the elegant outfits of Elvira. But this is just a faint rattling.
Recently, Guadagnino directed The Staggering Girl, a short movie in collaboration with Pier Paolo Piccioli e Valentino, with Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLachlan and Alba Rohrwacher. The film is available on Mubi.