Barry Levinson is now directing David Mamet’s JFK assassination movie
The drama has Al Pacino, Shia LaBeouf, Courtney Love, and John Travolta attached
Aux News David Mamet
Back in May, we heard about the interesting cast of Assassination, a David Mamet-penned drama about mobster Sam Giancana’s supposed involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—with Giancana’s nephew, Nicholas Celozzi, involved behind the scenes. Mamet was supposed to direct the movie himself, a rare move for him that afforded us the opportunity to point out some of his Trumpy political opinions.
But now Mamet is less involved than he was before, with Deadline reporting that Rain Man, Paterno, and You Don’t Know Jack director Barry Levinson has stepped in to take over for Mamet on Assassination, making this their latest collaboration after 1997’s Wag The Dog and HBO’s Phil Spector (which Levinson was an executive producer on). Deadline doesn’t say what prompted the shift, but Levinson will apparently be “putting his own stamp” on Assassination. Maybe that means he has some kind of specific take that varies from what Mamet had planned,
The aforementioned cast is also apparently unchanged, though Deadline only specifically mentions Shia LaBeouf and Al Pacino (SAG-AFTRA is still on strike anyway, so we might not know one way or another until the studios eventually back down and give the actors what they want and deserve, which they should do as soon as possible). Last we heard, the cast also included John Travolta, Viggo Mortensen, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Courtney Love, which runs the gamut from “huh” to “huh” pretty nicely. And, really, shouldn’t all movies casts be like that?
There’s no word on when Assassination might be released, but they just changed directors and there’s a strike going on, so it probably won’t be any time soon. All we ask is that they don’t change the cast at all at any point.
38 Comments
I know what Courtney Loves cupcakes!
The drama has Al Pacino, Shia LaBeouf, Courtney Love, and John Travolta attachedJesus, that sentence got worse with each passing name.
Come on. Travolta is a great song-and-dance man. That’s surely what he’ll be bringing to this picture, no?
Wait, are you thinking of Mandy Patinkin? Is Mandy in this? I’ve heard he does a great Kissinger.
Courtney Love and John Travolta? The 90s are back, baby!
Please let this be a comedy. Shia as JFK, Courtney love as the secretary who always crawls out from the Resolute desk after he gets up, wiping her lips.
Great. Hollywood can’t let more than a generation or two go by without serving up another dish of baby’s first bullshit conspiracy theory.
This will get those young people back spending money in the theaters.
Jesus Christ another JFK movie…we sure we don’t want another Marilyn Monroe biopic? Maybe a nice nostalgic movie about baseball? Maybe one about how great it was to be a kid in the 50s and 60s?
I’ll skip to the end: the CIA clearly did it and no one seems willing to do shit about it, and the Kennedy family are varying degrees of rich trash that Boomers stupidly hoisted up as “royalty.”And of course Rebecca Pidgeon is in it; it’s a Mamet movie.
Yeah, I was over JFK in the fucking 70s. There’s no fucking mystery there. A Marine with a scoped rife, firing from a supported position, shot a dude in the melon at basically point blank range.
Point blank? The book depository building wasn’t that close, surely?
80 yards I think I read somewhere. But hitting a man size target with a rifle (especially with a scope) is pretty simple out to 300 yards or so, especially if you’re all set up and waiting.
Given the sniper rifle Oswald had, it might as well have been.
Kennedy climbed up to the window and stuck his head in.
It’s no where near as far away as some would like you to believe. We did the tour of the old book depository last summer and it surprised me how close the target was.
Oh sure, I’m not disputing it’s closer than one might imagine. I’m just saying it’s not point blank unless Jackie’s holding the rifle.
Yeah there is no question as to Oswald’s guilt, if one has any familiarity with the case. But conspiracy believers don’t have an interest in that. They formed their conclusions first, and have worked their way backwards, taking evidence out of context, or misconstruing it, or falsifying it to support their theory, while arguing that any evidence that refutes their theory is fake, and anyone who says different is a CIA plant.
Um…why?
Crazy pants? Just a guess mind you.
Is there a good movie that focuses on Lee Harvey Oswald? Pretty interesting guy, especially the Mexico period with his dealings with the Cubans and Soviets there.
When are we gonna get a movie about the time Jimmy Carter valiantly engaged a swamp rabbit in single combat, defeat the bunnies champion and saving the United States from being taken over by the furry bastards.
I think JFK pretty well covers the conspiracy theory bases as-is.
And brings up the intrinsic homophobia behind Garrison’s conspiracy — clearly the creepy gay guy (Clay Shaw, played by Tommy Lee Jones) must have had something to do with it!
Worse, it’s a JFK film being made by not one, but two aging Boomers. I’m waiting for a JFK film or series that finally tears down the hagiography Jackie started, and Boomers have promulgated through several generations, and portrays JFK as he was – a philandering, drugged up child of privilege who made a career off a book he didn’t write, and who blundered his way through one thing after another, be it Cuba or South Vietnam or Civil Rights, and whose greatest accomplishment, honestly, was dying so LBJ could become president.
LBJ was a great man for his civil rights work. Pity he ramped up Vietnam and was a sexual harasser who liked to show his penis to people (to be fair, to all genders).
Thank God he blundered us out of the Cuban missile crisis. But, you know, that was no biggie.
Oh noes! Another JFK movie? The last one was, like, 30 years ago. Get a grip. And as far as “rich trash” Kennedys go, as fucked up as they were, they’re definitely better options than the current crop on offer, from either side
I still like the old joke “How do we know the CIA didn’t shoot JFK? Because he’s dead.” This is reference to the dozens of times the CIA tried to kill Fidel Castro and failed despite him being basically the leader of South Florida rather than of a superpower.
Lol yeah, that was hilarious. Their honeypot even defected bc Fidel’s lovin was so good. But I bet they could have done JFK…
Would you like a Vietnam War picture?
man am i sick of hearing about jfk’s assassination. plus mamet’s sell-by date expired a long long time ago
“plus mamet’s sell-by date expired a long long time ago” Agreed. Also, he’s a jack*ss.
The production schedule says there are three shots planned for Nov. 22nd.
That’s like strike six based on just the title and blurb.