30 November 2011 Last updated at 11:10

Scarface remake 'hires Training Day writer'

Al Pacino musing earlier this year on Scarface's enduring success

Training Day writer David Ayer has been recruited to pen Universal Pictures' planned remake of crime film Scarface, industry website Deadline reports.

The film will be a contemporary update of the violent gangster story, filmed previously with Paul Muni in 1932 and again with Al Pacino in 1983.

Speaking to Deadline, Ayer said there were "enough opportunities in the real world today... to do this right".

The film-maker's other credits include The Fast and the Furious and U-571.

"I see it as the story of the American dream, with a character whose moral compass points in a different direction," Ayer is quoted as saying.

"I studied both the original Ben Hecht-Howard Hawks movie and the De Palma-Pacino version and found some universal themes."

Earlier this year, Pacino said he had been "surprised" by the enduring success of his version, directed by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone.

"It's got an afterlife," said the actor, who famously played Tony 'Scarface' Montana as a ruthless Cuban drug lord.