THIS piece in Variety says Robert De Niro is teaming up with the sometimes brilliant, sometimes not, but usually interesting filmmaker Luc Besson to adapt Tonino Benacquista 's book BADFELLAS.
The picture's current working title is MALAVITA, which Variety describes as...
THIS description at Bitter Lemon Press describes Benacquista's book in a bit more detail. Sounds like it could be fun...
...a Besson-penned and -directed gangster thriller, with the working title "Malavita," toplining Robert De Niro as a retired American gangster living with his family under the witness protection program in Normandy.
THIS description at Bitter Lemon Press describes Benacquista's book in a bit more detail. Sounds like it could be fun...
Under cover of darkness, an American family moves into a villa in Cholong-sur-Avre in Normandy. Fred Blake tells everyone he is writing a history of the landings. In fact Blake is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafia boss who grassed and is now in the FBI Witness Protection Program. Having blown his cover a number of times in the US, the FBI finally sends him to France. Things happen to this thuggish family: a plumber who angers Fred with delays and exorbitant estimates ‘falls down the stairs’ and breaks both arms, the manager of the local supermarket insults Maggie behind her back so that afternoon his supermarket burns down, Warren, the son, starts a gang in his lycée, to intimidate and extort other pupils. A coincidence beyond belief blows Fred’s cover yet again and, with the arrival of the shooters from Newark, he is able to dive back into the violent life of crime he misses so much.
I'm a huge fan of many Besson directed films (LA FEMME NIKITA, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, LEON) but have struggled to appreciate some of the subsequent movies he wrote and/or produced (and not directed) - stuff like COLUMBIANA or FROM PARIS WITH LOVE. I'm cautiously...interested...to see how a De Niro/Besson pairing in a Besson directed picture will shake out.. We'll let you know more as we know more.
Per my snarky headline, my understanding is the title MALAVITA actually translates (more or less) to "to turn to crime" or "underworld" (Italian--->English) or "gangsterism."
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