Ok, as most of you know already (because I’ve only mentioned it almost every single time we’ve talked about The Departed), The Departed is based on the sinlge best cop movie I’ve ever seen, an Asian film by the name of Infernal Affairs. I thought they did a terrific job with translating Infernal into the North American context and it SHOULD win best picture this year at the Oscars. Anyway….
A little while ago we reported that Scorsese was planning on doing another Departed film. This made sense since Infernal Affairs has a sequel as well. It’s actually a PREQUEL, and it looks at the history between the crime boss and the police chief (played by Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen in the North American version), and it’s almost as good as Infernal Affairs 1 (some people even like it more). So obviously with such a rich piece of source material they’re going to base The Departed 2 on infernal Affairs 2 right? RIGHT?!?!?! Nope.
The following is given to us by the good folks over at Moviehole:
The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the claims today, saying that screenwriter William Monahan is working on a follow-up that would bring back the temperamental foul-mouthed cop played by Mark Wahlberg, who received an Oscar nomination for the role, and introduce a new character to be played by none other than Robert De Niro (who was actually up for the role that Martin Sheen ended up playing in the first film). As the trade states, the sequel probably won’t have anything to do with the original HK films on which “The Departed” is based, “Infernal Affairs”, because it’ll be an original story.
STUPID STUPID STUPID. You already have BRILLIANT source material with an AMAZING story sitting there all ready to be adapted, but instead you want to do a different version and focus it on the Mark Wahlberg character??? Are you freaking kidding me?!? This is a stupid idea. Getting De Niro involved is never a bad idea… but it’s not enough to make up for the colossal mistake this would be.
So what do you guys think? Are you as upset by this as much as me? Or do you see some potential upside to this story?
