From Gomorrah to Easy Money to the recent restoration of Wake In Fright, Martin Scorsese has often used the power of his name in order to lend some exposure to perhaps lesser known works. But rarely does he actually have a hand in filmmaking process of such features. While he’s recently wrapped production on his financial drama The Wolf of Wall Street and preparing to edit it for a release later this year, Variety brings us news of another fall feature that will actually have his touch.
Scorsese has jumped aboard Luc Besson‘s latest film, the mob drama Malavita, to serve as executive producer. He was already serving as a creative consultant during the pre-production and shoot, but has now formally joined up and will work side by side with Besson during post-production and editing. The connection makes sense, as his longtime collaborator Robert De Niro leads the film, alongside his Age of Innocence star Michelle Pfeiffer, as well as a genre the helmer knows from head to toe.
Adapted from Tonino Benacquista‘s novel Badfellas (no relation to Scorsese and De Niro’s 1990 hit), “the darkly comedic action film Malavita is the story of the Manzonis, a notorious mafia family who gets relocated to Normandy, France under the witness protection program. While they do their best to fit in, old habits die hard and they soon find themselves handling things the “family” way.” Scorsese getting back to mob drama terroritory with De Niro as the lead? We’ll be the first one in theaters when it lands on October 18th.
Are you more interested in Malavita now that Scorsese is on board?