Another big star has joined the Faces of Death remake. In development at Legendary Entertainment, the Faces of Death revival has just cast Charli XCX in what will be her first role in a live-action feature film, per TheWrap. The singer-songwriter is best known for her accolades in music, but has been making the transition into acting. She recently appeared as herself in the Gossip Girl revival, following voiceover work she'd done for The Angry Birds Movie and UglyDolls. Charli XCX also appeared on Saturday Night Live for the second time last year.
The new Faces of Death was previously reported to have cast Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria) and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) in main roles. More recently, it was revealed that Josie Totah (Saved by the Bell reboot) had also joined the cast. No other cast members have yet been named.
Daniel Goldhaber is directing using a screenplay co-written with Isa Mazzei. The film will be produced by Don Murphy and Susan Montford for Angry Films alongside Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath for Divide/Conquer. Mazzei is executive producing with Rick Benattar while Cory Kaplan and Derek Bishé will co-produce.
Faces of Death Gets Rebooted
There isn't a lot that's been revealed about the plot or characters of the new Faces of Death. It has been teased that the reboot will update the film for 2023, delving into viral videos rather than bootleg video tapes.
“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," the filmmakers have said of the reboot in a statement.
The original movie featured mostly faked scenes presented as actual footage of deaths, though there some footage of actual death scenes or the aftermath thereof were used in the film. That resulted in Faces of Death getting banned in many places all throughout the world, but the controversy also made the film more well known. The success of the movies would spawn several sequels and countless imitators. Using actual death footage would probably not fly in 2023 and it's safe to presume that won't be the case for this reboot. Even so, some have wondered if revisiting that film in any way is in poor taste.
John Alan Schwartz wrote and directed the original Faces of Death, released in 1978. It featured Michael Carr as Francis B. Gross, a pathologist who serves as the narrator showcasing different cases of gruesome deaths.
The Faces of Death remake doesn't yet have a release date.