Though he’s no longer involved in adapting console game Uncharted, David O. Russell hasn’t been sitting around playing it instead. Nope, he’s been developing project after project, including a Russ Meyer biopic, comedy drama Old St Loui****s, an untitled film with Ice Cube and Congressional sting drama American Bullshit. Plus he’s putting the finishing touches to The Silver Linings Playboo****k. While you might think his diary is full, he’s now attached to yet another potential movie, a biopic of controversial former Providence, Rhode Island mayor Buddy Cianci.
He’s not exactly a household name on these shores, but Cianci has had such an intriguing life that if you look up “colourful character” in an American dictionary, there’s a chance you’ll find his smiling mug. He spent 21 years as mayor of Providence, during which he met dignitaries and celebrities, chronicling his adventures in his modestly-titled memoir, "Politics And Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt A Dying City, Advised A President, Dined With Sinatra, Spent Five Years In A Federally Funded Gated Community And Lived To Tell The Tale."
That last bit about a gated community actually refers to the time he spent in jail on racketeering charges, which is intriguing considering he spent years as an anti-corruption crusader while in office. He even looked for a while like he might be something of a comeback kid (if you can call a 70-year-old a “kid”) in 2010, when he contemplated a fresh run at the mayor’s office, but ultimately decided not to go for it.
Robert De Niro and producing partner Jane Rosenthal have been developing the film via their Tribeca company, with Russell attached to direct and help work on the script with whichever writer they chose. But given that his last stab at anything related to politics related to the locked-in-producer-and-budget-battle nightmare of Nailed, he’ll be hoping things go a little more smoothly if he picks up the megaphone this time.