Plans for the Face/Off sequel have reportedly shifted with Paramount Pictures exploring fresh options following the departure of director Adam Wingard.
Face/Off 2 has reportedly stalled after director Adam Wingard departed the sequel.
The 43-year-old filmmaker – known for his work on the likes of 2011’s You’re Next, the Blair Witch sequel in 2016, and both 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong and its 2024 follow-up Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – had been attached for a while, but the long awaited movie isn’t quite on the cards yet.
As reported by Collider, Wingard is no longer set to direct the sequel to the classic 1997 action blockbuster, with Paramount Pictures still keen to reunite Nicolas Cage and John Travolta.
However, it’s said now the sequel has been switched to an opening directing assignment, meaning filmmakers can make their own pitches with the aim of developing the project and ushering it towards production.
The original movie was directed by John Woo, starring Cage and Travolta as freelance terrorist Castor Troy and federal agent Sean Archer respectively.
Troy ends up in a coma before he can reveal the location of his next attack, leading to Archer undergoing an experimental face-transplant procedure to pose as him and infiltrate a secret super-prison.
The terrorist awakes and makes the surgeons give him Archer’s face and kills them, taking over the agent’s life while he’s stuck trying to escape from prison, where the drama really begins.
In 2024, Wingard gave a promising update as he claimed Face/Off 2 was “full steam ahead”.
Speaking to Deadline at the time, he added: “We won’t know until we get to the next phase, but they’re going along really well, and the scripts are amazing.
“I’m so excited about what they could possibly be!”
However, he also hinted that he couldn’t give a precise timeline for production, as he had other projects in the works, any other potential entries in the Monsterverse franchise.
Speaking around the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, he added: “It’s also, what’s gonna happen with this series? Where are we gonna go from here?
“I’m kinda open, and keeping my options open. We’ll see!”
The sequel was first announced back in 2021, and Cage – whose character Troy appears to die at the end of the original film – insisted he was open to finding a way to return.
He told Collider in 2023: “I think Face/Off is a sequel that lends itself to a lot of twists and turns and unpredictability.
It’s almost like if you factor in the idea of offspring and Castor and Sean having children and these children grow up, then it becomes like three-dimensional chess, and then it’s not just the two, John Travolta and myself, it’s four of us ping-ponging and going at different levels, and it becomes even more complex.
“I think there’s a lot of fertile ground there.”
Face/Off 2 gets disappointing update almost 30 years after original action blockbuster
