Because You Demanded It: Nicolas Cage in Untouchables Prequel

What, didn’t you demand a prequel to Brian De Palma’s 1987 crime classic “The Untouchables”? Well buckle up, buckeroos, because you’re gonna get it anyway! MTV reports that Nicolas Cage (coming off the success of “Ghost Rider” and the abysmal failure of “Next”) will be donning the white suit and fedora as Al Capone in “The Untouchables: Capone Rising.” Because, one presumes, “Hannibal Rising” did so well, as did “Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power”. Wait, no they didn’t. One failed at the box office and the other went straight to DVD. But I digress.

Principal photography on the high-profile flick will begin in October, some 21 years after its predecessor was filmed. No word yet on whether the temporary “Capone Rising” title will be scrapped, following the chilly reponse audiences gave to February’s “Hannibal Rising” prequel.

Yeah, I’d go with scrapping it. This is supposed to be a crime film, not a teen slasher movie.

The original 1987 movie starred Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness, a federal agent assigned to take down Chicago’s infamous son Al Capone (Robert De Niro). When corruption in the police department threatens to torpedo his mission, Ness assembles a small band of cops, nicknamed The Untouchables, instead. The film introduced us to a young Andy Garcia and won Sean Connery a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.