14 DAY TRIAL // After much speculation on whether he’ll ever revisit the story he told in the 1990 classic “Goodfellas,” confirmation has come at last that Martin Scorsese will be doing so: for a television series.
The original film starred Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta, and told the story of a group of mobsters working their way up. The new series won’t be a remake or a reboot.
According to Digital Spy, the television series will actually be a prequel, which means it will have little in common with the 1990 cult classic, other than the director and the mobster theme.
Chances are the story will focus on the early life of Henry Hill, played by Liotta in the first film – but that is yet to be confirmed.
“A TV series based on the classic gangster movie Goodfellas has been confirmed after months of rumors,” Digital Spy says.
“Nicholas Pileggi – author of Wiseguy, the original book on which Goodfellas is based – and director Martin Scorsese are said to be involved in planning the TV series, which will be a prequel to the movie,” the same report says.
Confirmation comes from Pileggi himself, who recently revealed in a magazine interview that all the right people were interested in the new project; all they had left to do was to come together at the same time.
“I want to do it, Marty wants to do it, Warner Bros wants to do it. Of course, you can’t pick up from Goodfellas, since we murdered everybody, or rather, everybody was murdered!” Pileggi said.
Still, that hasn’t stopped any movie studio in Hollywood from making a new movie so far, so it won’t probably stop Warners either.
“There’s nobody left. But I think we’re going to figure out a way to do the early years – sort of a prequel,” Pileggi explained.
Further details on the project are not available at this point. The official announcement is yet to be made – but rest assured you’ll find out about it here when it comes.