10 Reasons Why The Scarface Remake Shouldn't Happen

5. It Would Have To Be R-rated - And That's Pointless

I spoke about this is some detail when I weighed up the pros and cons of remaking Showgirls last year. The argument goes something this: part of the worth of Showgirls was just how nasty and mean-spirited it was. It earned its NC-17 rating in America because it depicted Las Vegas in the most graphic and seedy way you could without being straight-up pornography. Remaking it with a R rating would require sanitising said seediness, defeating the purpose of the story and its style. The same argument applieds to Scarface, which as I mentioned barely received an R rating on first release. Thanks to Showgirls, no film given the NC-17 rating stands any real chance of box office success, and so it would have to be either made with an R rating in mind or (more likely) be cut for that rating. This would make it feel like the filmmakers were holding back (or being held back), defeating the tone and the purpose of the story. In short, you'd end up with the gangster equivalent of Burlesque, and that's not a good way to go.