We’ve seen Nicolas Cage do lots of wild and peculiar issues on display – working round with explosives strapped to his testicles in Prisoners Of The Ghostland, making out with a mannequin of his youthful self in The Insufferable Weight Of Large Expertise, and turning into a skeletal, flame-ridden motorcyclist in Ghost Rider, to call however a number of. Nonetheless, nothing fairly comes near the ludicrous thought of Cage’s murderous terrorist Castor Troy actually swapping faces with John Travolta’s Sean Archer, aka the FBI agent looking him down, in John Woo’s gloriously demented Face/Off, all the way in which again in 1997. Although rumours have swirled of a Face/Off sequel for some time now, nothing has fairly materialised but – however filmmaker Adam Wingard reckons he and common collaborator Simon Barrett are near cracking it.
Wingard, who beforehand directed The Visitor and Godzilla Vs Kong, has been engaged on a Face/Off follow-up with Barrett for some time now – and their take is “an absolute sequel” that will see Cage return, regardless of (spoiler alert!) Troy assembly the sharp finish of a harpoon within the first movie’s frenetic finale. “He’s simply having such a second. Even earlier than Pig got here out, we noticed this as a Nicolas Cage film,” Wingard tells Empire, within the forthcoming The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Energy situation. “That’s turn out to be completely the plain option to go now. A few years in the past, the studio perhaps would have wished a scorching, younger, up-and-coming actor or one thing. Now, Nicolas Cage is among the hottest actors in Hollywood once more.”
Although Cage isn’t formally on board simply but (a month in the past he acknowledged that he’d spoken to unique producer Neal H. Moritz about returning), the script will likely be heading his means quickly, as soon as Wingard and Barrett good the following draft. “We’re actually honing in on it,” Wingard says. “We’re not going to share it till everyone’s like, ‘That is the one.’” Devising a belated sequel to one of the crucial beloved, ridiculously-plotted motion pictures ever, starring considered one of Hollywood’s most eccentric and prolific main males isn’t a simple job – however Wingard is assured that he and Barrett are “the proper group” for the job. “I feel we actually acquired it,” he says. “It has been in all probability the most difficult script we’ve ever labored on, for lots of causes. There’s a lot strain in eager to make it possible for it lives as much as the legacy of that venture. However each draft you’ve this stuff that simply click on in, and also you’re like, ‘A-ha! That’s actually what Face/Off is!’” Relaxation assured, if it comes collectively, we will likely be pointing our faces – or, whoever’s face we’re carrying that day – proper on the massive display.
Learn Empire’s full Face/Off 2 story within the model new The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Energy situation – on newsstands Thursday 9 June, or out there to pre-order right here.
