If you’re wondering how Nicolas Cage and John Travolta ended up on similarly forlorn career paths, just know that it didn’t have anything to do with the 1997 cult classic, Face/Off. The action flick, beloved because of the mutual insanity brought by Cage and Travolta whose characters literally swap faces, is about to get a remake that can’t possibly stand up to its insane predecessor. Paramount is going to try, though.
Deadline reports writer Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street, The Cloverfield Paradox) has been hired to script a Face/Off remake, with Fast & the Furious’ Neal H. Moritz producing. The original movie starred Travolta as an FBI agent with Cage as his villainous rival. Their game of cat-and-mouse gets so heated they literally have their faces surgically reversed, meaning Cage plays Travolta and vice-versa. Pretty wild. Behind the camera was John Woo, and it became one of the Hong Kong filmmakers’ most successful Hollywood achievements, earning $245M and a spot in the hearts of many genre fans.
No word on a director or who the face-swapping duo will be this time, but they’ve got some gigantic shoes to fill. Face/Off is memorable not because the movie is particularly good, it’s Goddamn ridiculous but in a fun way. What you remember is the bizarre chemistry between Cage and Travolta, something I’m surprised we haven’t seen tapped into again since.
Too bad this news couldn’t have come out a couple of weeks ago when I was actually talking with Travolta and he brought up Face/Off. I’d like to know what he thinks about this. Perhaps Paramount goes with a pair of female leads this time? They could be funny and go with Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica Chastain, nobody would tell them apart.
