The planned sequel to the 1990s action movie Face/Off now has an available director’s chair.
Adam Wingard, who was previously attached to write and helm, left the Paramount Pictures project last summer, with both sides mutually agreeing to part ways, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Face/Off 2 is now an open assignment at the studio, with other filmmakers pitching their own visions for the follow-up to the original 1997 cult favorite that starred John Travolta and Nicolas Cage.
Back in 2019, the news broke that a Face/Off remake was in the works from producer Neal Moritz, with Paramount hiring Oren Uziel to pen the script. In 2021, the studio brought on Wingard to direct a sequel from a screenplay that he was writing with Simon Barrett.
Wingard’s next feature is the forthcoming A24 thriller Onslaught, starring Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Drew Starkey and Rebecca Hall. His previous films include The Guest and the 2016 sequel Blair Witch, along with the Monsterverse hits Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire from Warner Bros. and Legendary.
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Director John Woo’s original Face/Off centered on an FBI agent (Travolta) and a terrorist (Cage) who swap faces and identities through an experimental procedure. Paramount released the movie in June 1997, and it surpassed $240 million at the global box office, along with landing an Oscar nomination for sound effects editing.
During a 2024 interview with THR to promote Godzilla x Kong, Wingard teased his excitement for the progress that he had made on Face/Off 2.
“I don’t want to get too much into the weeds on the Face/Off thing, but yeah, I think the script is really fucking awesome,” the filmmaker said at the time. “It is one of those things where you read it, and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit! This is a true sequel to Face/Off that I could have never dreamed of.’”
Collider first reported on Wingard’s exit.