The John Woo identity switch film Face/Off is one of those 90s action movies that is memorable for good and bad reasons. With such a far-out concept and a beautiful excess of mayhem mixed with some fun drama, it’s easy to see why it made a mark the way it did, much more than Woo’s previous American effort, Broken Arrow, which was a more run-of-the-mill action movie. It’s also a film that seems like a one-and-done for the stars, no matter how much Paramount would want to franchise the title.
Well, although there had been rumblings of possible sequel talk before, now it looks as if good ol’ industry insider, Daniel Richtman, is back with a new rumor. According to Richtman, the new bit of news for the sequel is that both John Travolta and Nicolas Cage will be returning to the face-swapping sequel. How this will exactly work is not yet revealed since Cage’s Castor Troy did not emerge as the victor in his fight to the death with Travolta’s Sean Archer. However, an argument can be made that Castor’s face was preserved after the battle, and someone somewhere will be dawning his flesh mask. Or Troy simply wasn’t killed.
Prior to this news, Nicolas Cage revealed he met with Godzilla X Kong director Adam Wingard, who was developing a sequel with writer Simon Barrett, for a discussion of possible story ideas and one of the concepts involved Castor and Sean’s children. 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.“
According to World of Reel, last year, Wingard was adamant about doing the sequel with both stars returning, “Look, I mean, like, the only way that we’re going to do this really is if we get, you know, the original cast.’ I’m not going to say how it works or anything, but like, it’s got to be 100% the real follow up not just like some fan service movie, not just some like ca-ching thing, this has to feel like the ultimate follow-up to the original film.”