Sunday, September 13, 2009

When Will We See De Palma' Capone Rising?

For a good portion of this decade there has been talk about a film called Capone Rising. It is to be a prequel to The Untouchables.

I think this film would do incredibly well, especially in made with the right type of Hollywood finesse. The popularity of "origin" stories has really been generally successful, granted primarily in the superhero genre, but the gangster drama certainly isn't a forgotten genre, even in recent years - especially true crime stories like American Gangster about Frank Lucas or Public Enemies about John Dillinger.

Capone Rising is supposed to tell the story of Jimmy Malone (who last word had Gerard Butler) playing the part of this famous cop in the early day of Al Capone in Chicago.

Originally Antoine Fuqua was supposed to direct, but it didn't take long for the reigns to be returned into the hands of Brian De Palma. Generally, I tend to think of this as a good thing to make Capone Rising a true prequel - otherwise, I think under the eye and hand of a new direct, the connection to the two films might be weak, and hardly related.

Yet this change of hands all went down somewhere around 2004 and 2005. And now what? Filming was to begin in 2007...and without any formal casting announcements beside Butler the film doesn't appear to be in any sort of full-swing.

For a time Nicolas Cage, a Brian De Palma vetran (Snake Eyes) was to play young Capone, but he left due to scheduling difficulties - and oh, how I hope those scheduling difficulties remain (please make Ghost Rider 2 take up the next three years of Cage's career).

Perhaps some how De Palma will get filming together for this winter, as he has stated his intentions to recreate on film the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 where rival gangs Al Capone and Irish-Chicago gangster Bugs Moran.

But we need to see a script, casting, and key players come to the fold. De Palma I hope this project is taking time because you're working on getting it right, as a grand opus, but please at least tell us you're working on it. This project is too intriguing to fall into the background and never come together.

As for the casting of young Al Capone...I'm trying to think out of the box a little bit, and I'm thinking...how about Aaron Eckhart (worked with De Palma on The Black Dahlia) Josh Brolin?

This post is part of the Brian De Palma Blog-a-thon going on Cinema Viewfinder. Check out the other De Palma post there.

2 comments:

Jacob said...

What about Johnny Depp? Or has he done too many mob movies Like Public Enemies or Donnie Brasco. I think he would be a good choice. Also Josh Brolin sounds good too. Either way I think it would be a good movie too.

Adam Zanzie said...

I wouldn't mind Nicholas Cage, but Gerard Butler? With luck, De Palma will realize that Butler doesn't belong on a movie screen and kick him right off the project.

I like the Josh Brolin suggestion.