John Travolta’s new ‘Gotti’ biopic has been dropped by Lionsgate days before its release.
The new film was set for release under the studio’s Premiere banner later this month but now the project has been sold back to the production company Emmett/Furla/Oasis.
No reason has been given for the sale, however, according to Deadline, the producers have exercised the buy-back clause from the original contract.
And it is also reported the film was set for a limited release but the producers wanted to widen the distribution.
Helmed by Kevin Connolly, the biopic follows ill-fated mobster John Gotti (Travolta) who rises to the top of the New York underworld to become the boss of the Gambino crime family.
The FBI indicted members of Gotti’s crew for selling narcotics and he took advantage of growing dissent over the leadership of the crime family.
Gotti feared he would be killed along with his brother and best friend by crime family boss Paul Castellano for selling drugs, so he organised the murder of the mobster in 1985 and took over the family shortly after.
As the leader of the most powerful, richest and largest crime syndicate in the world, the Gambino family made hundreds of millions of dollars each year from construction, hijacking, loan sharking, drug trafficking and prostitution and pornography.
Gotti was eventually arrested and incarcerated until his death from throat cancer in 2002 when he was 61.
Travolta, 63, plays the famous mobster alongside his wife Kelly Preston as Victoria Gotti and Stacy Keach as Aniello Dellacroce.
The film is written by ‘Haywire’ and ‘The Limey’ scribe Lem Dobbs and ‘The Accused’ star Leo Rossi.
Although originally set for a 2017 release, The Tracking Board report that producers will now seek new distribution and is like to hit be released in 2018 instead of December 15.
John Travolta’s Gotti biopic delayed release
