Re- and Pre-Departed?

Martin Scorsese’s Boston cop thriller THE DEPARTED has been making plenty of favorite lists since it hit theaters a few months ago, and despite the grim fates of a few characters (okay, most of them), there apparently could still be room for a franchise.

The movie is a remake of a lucrative Hong Kong trilogy called INFERNAL AFFAIRS, and the American version could follow a similar path according to the flick’s hardheaded detective Mark Wahlberg. “We may do a sequel with a new cast, and a prequel and bring back the rest of the guys,” says the former Funky Buncher. And should the director himself return (his first time revisiting his work… unless you count CASINO), he may find himself surrounded by plenty of colleagues and other A-listers: “They’re talking to Robert De Niro and a couple of other people. Anybody who is anybody wants to work with Marty.”

While Scorsese and company did a tremendous job adapting the twisty original, I’d rather see him work on other material — the Hong Kong prequel and sequel basically just offered a lot of detail that seemed mostly superfluous.