Paramount hired Adam Wingard to direct and Simon Barrett to write a new Face/Off movie. There had already been nearly two years of development on a Face/Off remake with different filmmakers. Wingard excited fans when he revealed he was making a sequel to Face/Off. Now, Wingard tells Showbiz Cheat Sheet that he does indeed want John Travolta and Nicolas Cage to reprise their roles in Face/Off 2.

Wingard spoke with Showbiz Cheat Sheet about his latest film, Godzilla Vs. Kong. We’ll have a lot more with Wingard about the monster movie before it premieres March 31 in theaters and HBO Max. First, here is what he said about Travolta and Cage reprising their roles in his Face/Off 2.

In Face/Off, Sean Archer (Travolta) was on the trail of Castor Troy (Cage), who killed Archer’s son. When Archer captures Troy, he must switch faces with his enemy to go undercover and find out where Troy has planted a bomb. Unfortunately, Troy wakes up and takes Archer’s face. The film ends with Archer getting his face back, but Wingard has more in store for them in Face/Off 2.

“Some people just assume when I say that that it just means it takes place in the world of Face/Off,” Wingard said. “To me, Face/Off isn’t about a procedure or anything like that. It’s not about the world that the characters exist in. It’s about Sean Archer and it’s about Castor Troy. That’s what this movie is about. It’s the continuation of that story. It’s hard to talk about other than that but this is, to me, the definitive continuation of that saga.”

There were other directions in which a Face/Off 2 could have gone. It could have been two entirely different people switching faces. It could have dealt with the aftermath of the Archer/Troy swap. However, to make a sequel about Archer and Troy requires the participation of Travolta and Cage. Wingard says the actors are interested, but they still get script approval.

“We’re still writing the script so it’s still in early phases,” Wingard said. “Simon and I are very close to turning in our draft to Paramount soon. We’ll have to get over those hurdles of do they like this movie? They’ve read our outline. Everybody’s on board with it but actually turning in the script’s a different thing so we’ll see how everybody reacts to it.”

The return of Castor Troy and Sean Archer also overlooks the minor detail that Archer presumably killed Troy at the end of Face/Off. That’s never been an issue for movies. We saw his body collapse, but he woke up without a face so he can wake up from that. Perhaps they can meet up with other people who switch faces. Maybe this time, two women could switch faces. Sounds like that’s not where Barrett and Wingard are going with Face/Off 2.

“It’s not that I would be opposed to that but again, this is a story about Sean Archer and Castor Troy,” Wingard said. “To stick with that, the story is leading us in a very specific direction.”

We’ve seen Nicolas Cage do a lot of wild and weird things on screen – running around with explosives strapped to his testicles in Prisoners Of The Ghostland, making out with a model of his younger self in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, and becoming a skeletal, flame-ridden motorcyclist in Ghost Rider, to name but a few. However, nothing quite comes close to the ludicrous idea of Cage’s murderous terrorist Castor Troy literally swapping faces with John Travolta’s Sean Archer, aka the FBI agent hunting him down, in John Woo’s gloriously demented Face/Off, all the way back in 1997. Though rumours have swirled of a Face/Off sequel for a while now, nothing has quite materialised yet – but filmmaker Adam Wingard reckons he and regular collaborator Simon Barrett are close to cracking it.

Wingard, who previously directed The Guest and Godzilla Vs Kong, has been working on a Face/Off follow-up with Barrett for a while now – and their take is “an absolute sequel” that would see Cage return, despite (spoiler alert!) Troy meeting the sharp end of a harpoon in the first film’s frenetic finale. “He’s just having such a moment. Even before Pig came out, we saw this as a Nicolas Cage movie,” Wingard tells Empire, in the forthcoming The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power issue. “That’s become totally the obvious way to go now. A couple of years ago, the studio maybe would have wanted a hot, young, up-and-coming actor or something. Now, Nicolas Cage is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood again.”

Though Cage isn’t officially on board just yet (a month ago he stated that the new movie's producer Neal H. Moritz had spoken to him about returning to star), the script will be heading his way soon, once Wingard and Barrett perfect the next draft. “We’re really honing in on it,” Wingard says. “We’re not going to share it until everybody’s like, ‘This is the one.’” Devising a belated sequel to one of the most beloved, ridiculously-plotted movies ever, starring one of Hollywood’s most eccentric and prolific leading men isn’t an easy task – but Wingard is confident that he and Barrett are “the perfect team” for the job. “I think we really got it,” he says. “It has been probably the most challenging script we’ve ever worked on, for a lot of reasons. There’s so much pressure in wanting to make sure that it lives up to the legacy of that project. But every draft you have these things that just click in, and you’re like, ‘A-ha! That’s really what Face/Off is!’” Rest assured, if it comes together, we will be pointing our faces – or, whoever’s face we’re wearing that day – right at the big screen.

Collider's Steve Weintraub caught up with Cage on the promotional trail for his upcoming western, The Old Way, and when asked about Cage's interest in returning to the role, as well as the likelihood of it happening under director Adam Wingard, Cage offered the positive-sounding update on progress. The actor revealed that his initial discussions for the film included a plot that would feature Castor Troy and Sean Archer having children who grow up destined to, yes, face off against each other. There's an added twist as well about how their fathers play into the story. As Cage explained:


"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. I had maybe one meeting in an office, but I haven't heard anything since, so I don't know."

Cage also spoke warmly on the prospect of Wingard taking over the director's seat from Woo, having recently finished a movie that showcased two other cinematic legends battling against one another. "He's great, and I think we share similar tastes," Cage added. "We have similar sensibilities. I liked everything he did with Godzilla vs. Kong and I think that he's smart. He has respect for cinema and various kinds of iconography. I think it would be great."