John Woo (Silent Night, Manhunt), noted Hong Kong filmmaker behind classics such as A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled, is reuniting with his Face/Off star Nicolas Cage (Prisoners of the Ghostland) for Gambino, which will revolve around real-life New York crime kingpin Carlo Gambino.
Written by George Gallo (Bad Boys franchise) and Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga (Green Book), the movie will follow Carlo Gambino (Cage), a butcher’s son from Sicily, who rules New York’s underworld with quiet authority. But when his death sends shockwaves through the city, Pulitzer-winning journalist Jimmy Breslin follows the trail he left behind to uncover the man beneath the legend. Through the voices of those who loved him and those who feared him, Breslin peels back the composure that masked Gambino’s ruthlessness, revealing how this outsider rose to redefine power, loyalty and the American dream (via Deadline).
Coincidentally, Cage’s Face/Off co-star John Travolta also played a real-life gangster in the form of John Gotti in the 2018 film Gotti. On top of it all, the two stars are reportedly working on a sequel to Face/Off from director Adam Wingard (The Guest), which you can read about here. How’s that for coming in full circle?
NextG Films’ Gambino shoots this summer, with a $40M budget, starting in Atlanta, and then hopping to New Jersey, New York, and finally Sicily (via WOR).
We’ll keep you updated on Gambino as we learn more. Until then, we leave you with the sales Poster for Gambino, and the classic Trailer for Woo and Cage’s 1997 film, Face/Off:
Stop, John.
If this movie focuses on Jimmy Breslin, I wonder if most of the movie is going to be told in flashback. It’d be interesting to see if and how Woo would work in his signature action.
Hopefully it’ll be more of a fantasy take, and not Woo trying to pull a Scorsese.
I don’t think a fantasy take would fit here unless it were about a fictional gangster. But Woo’s style has always been like Scorsese just as much as it’s been like Kurosawa, Melville, and Peckinpah. Having a member of the Gambino family as the protagonist would make for interesting viewing.
Funded with Chinese money, I see.
The horror!
I only watch movies funded by Epstien’s friends money.