Martin Scorsese’s Frank Sinatra biopic is dead

It’s always a shame when dream projects fall through for any director, but one that was due to be directed by Martin Scorsese feels like an ever bigger one. With the Oscar-winning is preparing the final touches to his new anticipated film, Silence, but one of his long gestating films has finally been laid to rest, that is according to writer Michael Chabon.

The film was a biopic of famed singer and actor Frank Sinatra, one that had been floating around Hollywood for many years with Scorsese set to take on directorial duties but sadly it seems the project will never see the light of day. Chabon, best known for writing Wonder Boys and a draft of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, was due to write the script for the film but speaking to Vulture he said that’s no longer true, saying:

“I was working on a Frank Sinatra project for a while, and I read Tina Sinatra’s memoir of her father [‘My Father’s Daughter‘]. She called him ‘Daddy.’ It would’ve been so cool. Scorsese was going to direct it, and I wrote the script,”

Chabon did not give a specific reason for the project falling away apart from saying it was “the usual”. Read into that what you will. Reportedly, Al Pacino was Scorsese’s choice to play “Ol’ Blue Eyes” with Robert De Niro as Dean Martin and was even mulling over the idea of shooting the film in 3D which could have been something unique and very special.

Indeed, this isn’t the first time Scorsese has flirted with films centering around The Rat Pack: in the late 1990’s, he was working with Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi on Dino, a biopic that at one point was rumoured Tom Hanks as Martin, John Travolta as Sinatra, Hugh Grant as Peter Lawford, Adam Sandler as Joey Bishop and Jim Carrey as Jerry Lewis.

Here’s hoping that maybe one day this one gets a resuscitation.