Universal has been trying to get a new version of Scarface off the ground for a few years now, and this past August, it landed The Magnificent Seven helmer Antoine Fuqua in the director’s chair. Now Variety is reporting that The Wolf of Wall Street scribe Terence Winter has been hired “to do a polish of Jonathan Herman’s latest draft of Universal’s new retelling,” of the gangster story.

Per Variety, “The pic is a reimagining of the core immigrant story told in both the 1932 and 1983 films. The new film will be set in Los Angeles and will focus on a Mexican immigrant.” They’re taking our jobs! We need those crime lord jobs!

While I don’t have a problem with Scarface being readapted for the 21st century (I like the 1932 original and loathe the 1983 remake), I don’t have a lot of faith in Fuqua bringing a lot of texture to the material. Fuqua makes movies about tough guys being tough and how great it is that there are tough guys in the world. That perverse admiration kind of worked in Training Day and it might work again here, but I don’t see Fuqua adding a lot of nuance to this story.

I’d also be surprised if Winter was the last writer on this project. Fuqua seems to have struck up a strong relationship with Richard Wenk, who worked on the screenplays for Fuqua’s last two films, The Equalizer and The Magnificent Seven, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets a pass on this script at some point (unless he’s too busy with Equalizer 2 and Universal wants to fast-track Scarface). Fuqua told us earlier this month that he aims to start shooting Equalizer 2 in September 2017, so there would have to be a serious rush on Scarface, but depending on the scope of the project, I suppose it could happen.

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Image via Universal Pictures

 

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Image via Universal Pictures

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