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Martin Scorsese to direct Frank Sinatra biopic?

May 11th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Will Tina Sinatra force Marty to sleep with the fishes?

Don’t hold your breath.

May 14th marks the ten year anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death and his kids are out making noise to peddle repackaged CDs.

My guess is that Tina Sinatra is hoping that fairy tales can come true when she proclaimed Marty the Chosen One. In an interview with the Winnipeg Sun, Mr. Sinatra’s daughter let slip that Scorsese is going to direct a major theatrical bio of the The Voice for Universal.

“Marty has always wanted to do this,” Ms. Sinatra told Sun Media during a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Years ago there was talk of Marty bringing Nick Tosches’ astounding biography Dino to the screen. If memory serves, the “dream” cast went something like this: Tom Hanks as Dean Martin, John Travolta as Frank Sinatra, Wesley Snipes as Sammy Davis, Jr. and Adam Sandler as Joey Bishop.

Forrest Gump as the swinginest borracho ever to swizzle a stick? Better Tony Danza or Eddie Mecca. With plenty of makeup and a camera placed at a safe distance, bloated Travolta could probably have doubled Frank’s later years, but the singer’s rawboned beginnings would have been a stretch. Tommy Davidson is the only man alive capable of doing Sammy justice, not the musclebound Snipes who’ll probably be finishing his jail sentence right around the time shooting commences. The only preordained bit of casting was Happy Gilmore as the Rat’s Pack’s resident nebbish. He has the hair for it, and for once Sandler would have found a part worthy of his limited talent.

This will mark daughter Tina’s third big screen attempt to cash in on her father’s legacy. She produced Sinatra, a 1992 mini-series, as well as Jonathan Demme’s ill-fated (and underrated) remake of The Manchurian Candidate.

Ms. Sinatra admitted that it might be somewhat premature to announce that Marty has signed on for the biopic. When she dubbed her choice for director, “the most prominent Italian-American filmmaker” working today, Sun Media instantly guessed Francis Ford Coppola.

“We adore him,” she said, “but he didn’t step up to it.”

She later confirmed it was Scorsese. “You’ll be reading about it very soon … oh, go ahead and print it, I don’t care!”

With Ashecliffe in production, Marty has four upcoming features on his plate that should take him through 2011: A pair of musical documentaries on the lives and careers of George Harrison and Bob Marley, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and Silence, a Bergmanesque sounding tale of two Jesuit priests questioning the death of God in seventeenth century Japan.

Will the Sinatra estate allow Marty to paint a “warts and all” portrait? Borrowing a metaphor from her father’s own words, Sinatra said, “He never drove the getaway car” and in the forthcoming picture, “I don’t want him to be driving the getaway car. That would not be fair. But I trust Him (Scorsese) implicitly.”

In God we Trust!

***UPDATE***

In a interview in today’s Los Angeles Times, Tina Sinatra appears “particularly enthusiastic” about Marty’s chances of directing. It’s not a lock. There is also disharmony between Tina and Nancy. The paper reports, “Nancy Sinatra, 67, is against a feature film, even if Oscar-winner Scorsese fulfills his longtime goal of directing it. She fears it would dwell on the negative and ugly moments of her father’s complicated life. She prefers an eight- to 10-hour documentary, which needs to be ‘very, very precise.’”

Links:
Martin Scorsese photos
Frank Sinatra photos
Dean Martin photos
Martin Scorsese Reviews and Articles

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Oliver Stone’s George Bush biopic “W” set to begin shooting

March 27th, 2008 by Scott Marks

bush-3way-web.jpg
W and a couple of ‘fluffers’

Let’s hope that Oliver Stone’s take on George W. Bush is half as entertaining as his previous presidential vivisection, Nixon.

With Josh Brolin already inked to star as our lunk-headed Commander in Chief, Elizabeth Banks today signed on to play Laura in Stone’s latest presidential biopic, W. Too bad Robert Ryan didn’t live to play Bush.

Stanley Weiser, who co-wrote Wall Street with Stone, penned the script and principle photography should commence in late April in Shreveport, La.

Can’t wait for “Taft!”

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