Paramount answers pleas of a grateful nation, remakes Face-Off

1997’s Face-Off is a movie with a premise more than dumb enough to work and work brilliantly. John Travolta and Nicholas Cage star as an FBI agent and a domestic terrorist respectively. Travolta takes on Cage’s face so he can infiltrate a criminal organization, but while he’s doing that, Cage takes Travolta’s face and vows to start taking over his life. Then the pair shoot each other in a series of preposterously operatic sequences and American audiences turn it into director John Woo’s biggest-ever hit. And why not? Does that not sound awesome?

Did I say awesome? I meant ridiculous. Eh, same thing.

Anyway, Deadline now reports that Paramount is remaking the movie, with Sonic the Hedgehog cowriter Oren Uziel on board to write the script. (He’s written other things but that’s the credit that’s going to stick, mark my words.)

Yes, remakes are tiresome, but if you’re going to remake something, remake something goofy. Also, now we get to speculate over which two actors will imitate each other’s mannerisms on screen. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? Kit Harington and Richard Madden? Timothée Chalamet and Morgan Freeman? A pair of Hemsworths, maybe? The possibilities are endless.

In other remake news, Deadline reports that The CW is rebooting Dark Shadows, a 1960s-era soap opera about a patrician family beset by all manner of supernatural horrors. The show was hugely popular in its day, but modern audiences might know it best based on Tim Burton’s campy 2012 movie version, and it’s not like that movie set the world on fire.

Still, new showrunner Mark B. Perry sounds like a Dark Shadows superfan. He vows to do for Dark Shadows what Star Trek: The Next Generation did for Star Trek in the 80s and 90s: his new show will respect the source material but still go its own way, keeping in mind that it can’t be too precious about the lore so that new viewers feel welcome.

If Mark B. Perry is happy, I’m happy, and Mark B. Perry sounds quite happy. There’s no news no when either of these remakes will come out, but expect them in the next couple of years.

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h/t The A.V. Club