The director who dreamed of blowing up Al Pacino with a rocket launcher: “Can you imagine how mental that would have been?”
Few actors in history have ever been better than the 1970s version of Al Pacino, made all the more impressive by the fact he only made his feature debut in 1969. Of course, the cream always rises to the top, even if he did it quicker than most.
Between 1971’s The Panic in Needle Park and 1979’s …And Justice for All, Pacino only appeared in eight movies during the decade, which wasn’t a huge number by the standards of the time. However, the quality dramatically offset the lack of quantity, which made him one of his generation’s marquee talents by default.
It was an era that delivered the first two instalments in The Godfather trilogy, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico, with awards recognition becoming second nature. From those eight films alone, Pacino netted five Academy Award nominations, won a Bafta from three nods, and made the Golden Globes shortlist six times, taking home a ‘Best Actor’ prize for Serpico.
Needless to say, the 21st-century iteration of Pacino doesn’t have quite the same nose for an impeccable script. Happy with his lot in life and cemented as one of American cinema’s all-time greats, the veteran has lent his name to some amount of shite in recent years, but it’s all been part of his twisted masterplan to see if he can single-handedly elevate awful material.
The downside is that the world has been cursed with Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill, diabolical Robert De Niro re-team Righteous Kill, miserable crime thriller Hangman, the notorious Gigli, and the wretched 88 Minutes, to name a few. Somehow, though, Pacino has managed to resist the lure of the superhero movie, even if it stands to reason he probably wouldn’t say no if it came his way.
In an alternate timeline, he could have not only appeared in a superhero flick but been blasted into smithereens by a foul-mouthed teenage girl. It sounds insane, but Mark Millar admitted to The Guardian that “we actually talked about Pacino for the first Kick-Ass film” when he was discussing potential villainous candidates with director Matthew Vaughn.
The part of New York City mobster Frank D’Amico was eventually filled by Mark Strong, but once cooler heads prevailed, and the pair realised Pacino was too old, they were left to reflect on what might have been. “Could you imagine how mental that would have been?” Millar wondered. “Scarface getting kicked to death by a 10-year-old girl and then blown up with a rocket launcher?”
Some of Pacino’s choices have made it clear he doesn’t mind lowering himself to the realms of nonsense, and it definitely would have been a sight to behold, watching him get annihilated by an RPG in Kick-Ass. The scenery-chewing alone would have been worth the price of admission, but sadly, it wasn’t to be.
