A couple of months ago it was reported that John Gotti Jr was busy trying to set up a book, documentary and a feature film, based on his life growing up as the son of an infamous mobster. Now JoBlo was stumbled on a TMZ report that none other than Sylvester Stallone is in talks to play the mafioso.
At the moment we’d take this one as a slightly dubious rumour, as while TMZ have occassionally broken some very big stories first (such as Michael Jackson’s death), in their rush to get things online their batting average is abysmal. That said, Stallone wouldn’t necesarily be a bad choice to play the man known as the Dapper Don. Gotti Snr. was well known as the most most powerful crime boss in America in the 1980s, but he kept getting away with it because all attempts to bring him to justice failed – hence his other nickname, the Teflon Don.
The film would follow Gotti’s son as he grew up with a powerful mafioso father, got inducted into the Gambino Crime Family in 1988, and took over in the early 90s when his father was finally imprisoned. For several years, like his dad, he managed to escape conviction, before pleading guilty to racketeering in 1999, at whch point he says he put his life of crime behind him him. That said he’s spent most of the past decade in court or in prison on charges stemming from both his former life and accusations that he was still involved in crime. Presumably he sees a film as a way to rehabilitate his image.
It’d certainly be interesting, whether Stallone plays his father or not.