It’s an all-too common story in Hollywood. You have your star attached (in this case, Robert De Niro), your studio ready to flash that green light (Paramount) and some source material (Don Winslow’s retired mobster novel The Winter Of Frankie Machine). What’s missing? Hhm… Let’s see… Got the personal trainer booked, the office wallpaper on order… Oh, wait! A script! Can we do without? No? Right.
To tie up that last little dangling detail, Paramount has hired Ocean’s Thirteen scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien. They will adapt Winslow’s novel as soon as they’ve finished work on Soderbergh’s latest - he likes to keep writers around on set, y'see.
The plot follows a former mafia hit man who hung up his guns to live the quiet life running a bait shop. But when a Mafia boss’s son asks for backup to resolve a problem, our hero suddenly realises he’s been set up to be offed.
The book arrives in US stores on 26 September. The film? We’ll keep you posted.