Updated news on the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese and Colombo Organized Crime Families of New York City.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Lindsay Lohan is on the John Gotti movie hit list


Lindsay Lohan is on the Gotti hit list — the movie, that is.

It’s not a good sign when a Post-it is covering over her name on the movie poster for “Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father” that hangs in the producer’s office, according to this week’s issue of New York magazine.

It’s another bit of comedic drama in the Hollywood gang war that has sent some of the key behind-the-scenes players to the mattresses in the making of John Gotti Jr.’s troubled biopic about his Mafia-kingpin dad.

Writer Steve Fishman, who has chronicled the latest woes to befall the sputtering production, recalls taking notice of the Lohan diss during a visit with producer Marc Fiore at his Manalapan, NJ, office.

He “had a poster of the Gotti movie, though Lohan’s name was covered by a pink Post-it,” he writes.

The struggling rehab actress was slated to play the Gambino godfather’s long-suffering wife, a role Lohan snagged using the muscle of Junior’s “Growing Up Gotti” sister, Victoria.

“Is there anything you can do?” she asked.

“I’d love to have Lindsay in my movie,” Fiore said. Done deal.

Fishman writes that Lohan, who is no stranger to a jail cell or five-fingered jewelry discounts, didn’t even know she had been dumped from the movie until after director Barry Levinson told a Cannes festival crowd he wanted to make cast changes.

“He wasn’t interested in Lohan,” [Levinson] said, which Fiore heard about in an emotional 2 a.m. call from Lohan.

Fiore, a small-time Wall Street crook who went to jail for securities fraud, could do nothing but listen to Lilo bawling like a baby into his ear. But Lohan was in “GoodFella” company, he said. Movie wiseguy Joe Pesci’s name also was unceremoniously blacked out on the movie poster after he sued Levinson for changing his part as the don’s best pal.

The Gambino godfather, who withered away from cancer in a prison hospital in 2002, had been a captivating one-man crime show on the New York City stage, swaggering around in handmade suits and smirking from the defense table in court. But Junior has insisted he wants the movie to portray the compassionate side of his ruthless, murdering dad, who will be played by John Travolta for a reported $10 million.

“The movie is seen through my eyes,” Junior says. Telling that to his father was the toughest thing he ever had to do, he admits. “I did feel like he was disappointed. I still do. I have to wrestle with that everyday,.”

In the script, probably meant to be a tear-jerker, Gotti’s mobster role model Aniello Dellacroce, played by Al Pacino, is dying. “Gotti crawled into bed with his mentor so they could watch sports together,” Fishman writes. The scene convinced Levinson to direct. “That’s why I loooove the project” he cooed to Fishman.

The script also includes a final face-off with his dad at the supermax prison in Illinois. Junior had been charged with extortion and had wanted to cop a plea deal and do the unthinkable — sever ties with the mafia.

The movie’s climatic scene is when Junior tells his foul-mouthed father he wants “closure.” Gotti explodes. “That word is not in my vocabulary. That’s [for] overeducated, underintelligent motherf-----s ... that word ‘closure.”

Junior pleaded guilty anyway and got 7 rather than 25 years. He never saw his father again.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/lohan_cast_aside_Op6zFCTZkeNM8bWVt9ntYI


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