Faces of Death remake: Charli XCX joins the cast

Every time news breaks regarding Legendary Entertainment’s remake of the infamous 1978 box office hit Faces of Death (get it HERE), it’s something completely unexpected. Who would have ever thought that film would inspire a remake that stars young actors from the likes of Euphoria, Stranger Things, and Saved by the Bell? That’s exactly what’s happening, as the project (which starts filming this month) does indeed star Barbie Ferreira of the HBO series Euphoria, Dacre Montgomery of Netflix’s Stranger Things, and Josie Totah of the recent Saved by the Bell revival. Now The Wrap delivers some more unexpected news: singer Charli XCX has chosen to make her film acting debut in the Faces of Death remake.

Charli XCX has done some voice acting before (The Angry Birds Movie and UglyDolls) and has appeared on TV shows (Saturday Night Live and Gossip Girl), but this will be her first time acting on screen in a feature film.

The first Faces of Death was about a pathologist exploring gruesome ways to die via footage purportedly culled from around the world. In reality, most of the death scenes were staged, but no matter, the movie had its producers’ desired effect: outrage, revulsion, banning (although not in 52 countries, as hyped by the film’s makers), and, of course, a money-making hit that spawned sequels and imitators. It was written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, who used multiple pseudonyms for several crew jobs on the flick.

Seven sequels followed over the next twenty-one years. Now writer Isa Mazzei and director Daniel Goldhaber, the team that brought us the Netflix release Cam, are making the remake for Legendary Entertainment and producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford’s company Angry Films.

Mazzei and Goldhaber provided the following statement about their approach to the concept: “Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online.“

When it was first announced that Mazzei and Goldhaber were taking on the project, it was said that their story will center on a female moderator of a YouTube-like website whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, who stumbles across a group that is re-creating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age of online misinformation, the question is: Are the murders real or fake? It’s not clear if that story is still in place, but we do know that Legendary is aiming to make this “more in the psychological horror field than in the slasher mould”.

Murphy and Montford are producing the Faces of Death remake with Divide/Conquer’s Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath. Rick Benattar serves as executive producer, with Cory Kaplan co-producing. Murphy and Montford have been hoping to make a new version of Faces of Death ever since 2006, and for several years they had J.T. Petty attached to write and direct. They started the development process over from scratch when they hired Mazzei and Goldhaber.

What do you think of Charli XCX being cast in the Faces of Death remake? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.