Hold the front page, forget the new president, we've got an announcement that everyone has been waiting for. Yep, that's right, the Smokin' Aces prequel has been greenlit!
Writer/director Joe Carnahan made the momentous announcement on his official website:
Finally, some actual 'Smokin Aces' news. Universal has officially greenlit the prequel and we are underway. Cameos will abound. Trust me.
So cameos 'will abound' eh? Not surprising, given that the first film saw just about everyone wind up dead, which pretty much means that this movie would have to be a prequel.
So, looks like we can expect turns from the likes of The Piv (as the titular supergrass magician Buddy 'Aces' Israel), Ben Affleck's bail bondsman Jack Dupree, Ryan Reynolds' FBI agent Richard Messner and Alicia Keys' sharp shooting Georgia Sykes.
But we might also get some more insight now into the characters played by Jason Bateman, Peter Berg, Common and Ray Liotta, while we're waiting with bated breath to see if Chris Pine will reprise his role as the psychotic neo-Nazi Darwin Tremor. After all, the new Captain Kirk might not need to do this film, but given that Pine has a lot of respect for Carnahan, and was set to star in his proposed adaptation of James Ellroy's White Jazz, he might well want to do this for old time's sake.
Smokin' Aces was pretty much universally panned, and didn't bring in the big bucks, so rumours are already doing the rounds that the prequel will go straight to DVD. Carnahan seems committed though, so it could be ace. Or, indeed, smokin'.