Nicolas Cage To Star As Al Capone In 'Untouchables' Prequel No One Asked For
Veteran Hitchcock cribber homagist Brian DePalma is reaching back over two decades for his next project, following up 1987's The Untouchables with an origin prequel, The Untouchables: Capone Rising. MTV Movie Blog now confirms it's Nicolas Cage, in the latest in a string of bizarre career choices, who'll be stepping into Robert DeNiro's wing-tip shoes as the title mobster:
Following in the footsteps of DeNiro, Cage will portray Al Capone in "The Untouchables: Capone Rising".
Directed by Brian DePalma, the flick is a prequel to his 1987 classic "The Untouchables", and revolves around the early dealings of the infamous gangster with Jimmy Malone - the Irish cop role that won Sean Connery an Oscar.
After the disappointment that was The Black Dahlia, we suppose it's natural that DePalma might want to return to the familiar world established in one of his most commercially and critically well-received films. What drew Cage to the project, however, is less apparent, as the straightforward mob story appears on the surface to offer the esoteric actor none of the more colorful character flourishes he's been drawn to in his recent work. Perhaps DePalma has made assurances that this Capone won't be the one-note monster of the first film, but a far more complex and emotionally resonant one, whose brutality and lawlessness were part of a life-sparing deal with the devil that required him in exchange to haunt the criminal backrooms of Prohibition-era Chicago in a bear suit carrying a flaming baseball bat.
