For those who hadn’t heard of “Frankie Machine,” the film was being made at Paramount and the original title was “The Winter of Frankie Machine.” The story was about a retired hit man and back in March of this year, Variety reported that “Ocean's Thirteen” screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien were writing the screenplay for De Niro before Scorsese got involved.

Obviously I’m a huge fan of Martin Scorsese mafia movies, with “Goodfellas” being one of my favorite films of all time. So while he may have dropped out of the film and disappointed those who wanted to see another team-up, perhaps they have something even better being planned. Let’s hope so.