The bitter director who wrote Al Pacino off in 1989: “His career went into the toilet”
If hard drugs, flying bullets and enough swearing to make Brian Blessed blush are your thing, then Scarface probably needs no introduction.
Brian De Palma’s 1983 remake took the bones of the old gangster picture and dragged them into the cocaine-fuelled excess of the 1980s. With Al Pacino as Cuban exile turned Miami kingpin Tony Montana, the film was met with a mixed response on release, but time has been kind to it. Decades later, Scarface has become one of those movies that seems to have seeped into popular culture, influencing everyone from filmmakers and actors to rappers and rock stars.
De Palma wasn’t the only legendary filmmaker who worked on Scarface, and I’m not talking about the time Steven Spielberg visited the set. The screenplay was written by Oliver Stone, who had not yet risen to fame as a director. He initially turned down the offer to write the film, as he wasn’t a fan of the original film. His work has now entered the public lexicon, with “say hello to my little friend” being one of the most quoted film lines ever.
Scarface was the first time Pacino and Stone worked together on a project, but it could have been the second. In the 1970s, the Vietnam War veteran was attempting to make the film that would eventually become Born on the Fourth of July. Pacino was initially on board to play the lead character, Ron Kovic, but when he walked away from the project, it plunged into development hell.
It seemed like the two heavyweights’ relationship had been mended by Scarface, but this wasn’t the case. When Sidney Lumet was originally going to direct Platoon from Stone’s script, Pacino was in the running to play the main character. Once again, he dropped out. The project would finally be completed many years behind schedule, with Stone serving as both writer and director, and Tom Berenger playing the part earmarked for Pacino.
These two rebuttals left a rather sour taste in Stone’s mouth. Unfortunately for Pacino, the Oscar-winning director isn’t one for holding his tongue. Pacino is a schmuck,” Stone told People. “His career went into the toilet.”
Stone really shouldn’t have taken this so personally. Turning down movies is just what Al Pacino does. From Travis Bickle to John Rambo to Han Solo, the list of the legend’s rejected roles contains some of the best movies ever made. This flaky attitude drew the ire of multiple Hollywood bigwigs. It’s a minor miracle he was ever offered a good role ever again.
Fortunately for cinema fans, Stone and Pacino put their differences to one side to finally work together in 1999. Pacino played Tony D’Amato, coach of the fictional Miami Sharks American football team, in Stone’s sports drama Any Given Sunday. This was a long time coming and should have been one of the biggest canon events in film history. Instead, Any Given Sunday was thoroughly average and absolutely not worth waiting over a decade for. Maybe these two were better off as enemies.
