Scarface duo Al Pacino and Brian de Palma reunited

Pacino starred in Scarface in 1983

Al Pacino and Brian de Palma are teaming up for the first time in 20 years to make a film about a disgraced American football coach.

The actor and director, who worked together on Scarface and Carlito's Way, are joining forces for Happy Valley, which tells the story of Joe Paterno.

The Penn State coach, who died last year, allegedly covered up child sex abuse by his assistant Jerry Sandusky.

The film will be produced by Edward R Pressman of American Psycho fame.

Pressman, who has acquired the movie rights from Joe Posnanski, author of the best-seller Paterno, said: "Happy Valley reunites the Scarface and Carlito's Way team of De Palma and Pacino for the third time.

"And I can't think of a better duo to tell this story of a complex, intensely righteous man who was brought down by his own tragic flaw,"

In July last year, six months after Paterno's death from lung cancer, all of Penn State's results from 1998 to 2011 were expunged from the records as the result of the child abuse scandal which saw Sandusky jailed for 30 years after being found guilty of 45 counts of sexual abuse.

Pacino and De Palma originally worked together on 1983's Scarface - a remake of a 1930s film - which saw Pacino portray a Cuban refugee who becomes a drug cartel kingpin in the US before his life gradually unravels.

Ten years later the pair reunited for Carlito's Way - the tale of a career criminal whose determined bid to go straight hits the buffers.