It was announced last year that Universal Pictures was developing a contemporary remake of Scarface and shortly thereafter, Training Day David Ayer was brought aboard to provide a screenplay. Today, Deadline reports that the project is still moving forward and that Quiz Show writer Paul Attanasio has signed on to rewrite.
Originally directed for the screen by Howard Hawks in 1932, the story of a gangster’s rise to power was based on the 1929 Armitage Trail novel of the same name. In 1983, Brian De Palma offered a modernized update of the story with Al Pacino in the lead, which is the version best known today.
Producers Martin Bregma and Marc Shmuger (the former of which produced De Palma’s version) are working on the new version which is expected to borrow elements from both Hawks and De Palma’s takes on the material.