For a while, it looked like the adaptation of Don Winslow’s book The Winter Of Frankie Machine would never manage to claw its way out of development hell.
Paramount nabbed the rights to the book – about a retired mob hitman named Frank Machianno, who is drawn back into the life he eschewed when he’s asked to help the son of a mob boss sort out a dispute, but realises he’s just been marked for death – back in 2005, and it’s been gathering dust since then.
Now Michael Mann is aboard and is working with writer Alex Tse to re-work the basic concept. It’s been a long time since De Niro’s played a mobster – at least not a spoof mobster – but the Frankie Machine story was apparently compelling enough to pull him back in. And just when he thought he was out, too…
