It's been a long time since Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese teamed up on a film, not since 1995's Casino, but since 2010 we've been hearing about a potential project that would see them reunited along with fellow screen gangsters Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. The film, which last we heard would also feature Harvey Keitel, is I Heard You Paint Houses(aka The Irishman), based on the non-fiction book by Charles Brandt. And yep, it's about mobsters. How could it not be?
The story is based on the life of Frank Sheeran, a military vet who joined the Teamsters union and became hired muscle for Jimmy Hoffa and a hitman for the mafia. Hoffa disappeared suddenly in 1975, and Sheeran claims to be the man who killed him. Last year we received an update on the project, with De Niro expressing some confidence that the film would still happen. Now while talking to The Guardian, he reveals that the plans are still in the works, it's just a matter of timing....
De Niro: "We've been trying to get it going for a couple of years and now we're just trying to set a time. It's about a guy called Frank Sheeran who was in the Teamsters [a US union] and claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. I'd play Frank Sheeran and Pacino would play Hoffa. Joe Pesci would be in it too."
Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa? Already worth the price of admission. When De Niro was asked for a more certain time frame on filming, he deadpanned....
De Niro: "It has to or we all won’t be around any more."
Well, he does have a point. Or at the very least they'll be too old for this particular movie. Everybody, with the possible exception of Pesci, are pretty busy right now so who knows if getting everyone on the same page will ever happen. They're going to need a title change, too. The Irishman could work, but I Heard You Paint Houses sounds like an art house film nobody wants to see. This is suddenly a very popular time for movies based on folks who claim to have murdered Hoffa. Michael Shannon recently played notorious hitman Richard Kuklinski in The Iceman.
