Plug pulled on Mafia movie, because author rejects fashion model as star
The author of a best-selling book about vicious Mafia hit man Richard Kuklinski has pulled the plug on a deal with major Hollywood producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who had optioned the rights, because he couldn’t stomach the idea of Channing Tatum in the title role, the New York Post reports. Phil Carlo told the paper that he “really hated” the idea of the star of She’s the Man, Step Up, and G.I. Joe: Cobra Killer in the title role of the film version of The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer and said so to Bonaventura, who produced G.I. Joe as well as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Carlo doesn’t believe Tatum, a former fashion model, has the requisite toughness to play the role: “This is not the guy to play one of the most feared killers of the 20th century,” he says. His choice? Mickey Rourke. “He’s got that sense of danger, and there’s a similarity between the two. But it’s not Channing Tatum.”