Casting Couch: Scorsese and De Niro Make a Killing

Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are Goodfellas again

By Josh Grossberg Oct 02, 2008 6:37 PMTags
Robert De Niro, Martin ScorseseEvan Agostini/Getty Images

Big doings on the casting couch, what with Hayden Christensen remaining gainfully employed, 90210's Shenae Grimes getting a little extra cigarette money and somebody finally getting Yogi and Boo-Boo a film deal.

But that's nothing compared to this: Scorsese and De Niro are back in the crime biz.

The Oscar-owning buddies are joining cinematic forces for the ninth time—but their first collaboration since 1995's Casino—for Paramount's I Heard You Paint Houses, about the mob hitman believed to have 86'd Jimmy Hoffa.

Scorsese will helm the project and De Niro will play contract killer Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, according to Variety. Sheeran murdered more than two dozen people at the behest of his Mafia bosses.

The film's title is mob lingo referring to hits—i.e., someone's got to repaint the walls to cover up the blood splatter. It's based on a 2004 book by former prosecutor Charles Brandt, who interviewed Sheeran just before his death a year earlier. Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for a little movie called Schindler's List and who cowrote Scorsese's Gangs of New York, will handle the adaptation.

Scorsese and De Niro will jointly produce the film through their respective companies, but there's no word yet on when I Heard You Paint Houses will begin shooting.

Now about the day's other dealings:

  • The Hollywood force is with Hayden Christensen. The Star Wars star has inked a three-picture deal with Sony's Screen Gems, beginning with the upcoming crime drama Bone Deep with Paul Walker, Matt Dillon and Zoe Saldana. Proving nepotism is alive and well, the deal also allows Christensen to develop projects with his bro, Tove.
  • Shenae Grimes' new ZIP code is at The Cross Road. The 9/11-themed drama revolves around an all-American teen girl who falls for a Syrian boy. Nothing a couple of milkshakes at the Peach Pit can't fix.
  • Warner Bros. hopes it's smarter than the average studio, by launching a film on Jellystone Park's animated ursines, Yogi and Boo-Boo. The classic Hanna-Barbera 'toons will be CGI animated in the otherwise live-action flick. Somewhere Huckleberry Hound is getting his agent on the horn.