John Travolta And Al Pacino Making A Movie About The Most Controversial Moment In US History
John Travolta and Al Pacino star in a new thriller about the JFK assassination.
Hollywood’s greatest talent is coming together to film a movie about one of the most controversial events in United States history. According to Deadline, John Travolta and Al Pacino join a star-studded cast helmed by award-winning director David Mamet to create Assassination, a film that imagines what could have actually happened to spur the John F. Kennedy assassination.
While John Travolta and Al Pacino would be enough star power to man a movie of this caliber on their own, Assassination is gearing together a fully star-studded cast that will also include The Lord of the Rings’ Viggo Mortenson, Heist’s Rebecca Pidgeon, singer and actress Courtney Love, and controversial actor Shia LaBeouf. The six actors set to star in this political thriller boast an incredible combined collection of accolades as Pacino won an Oscar for his performance in The Godfather, and Travolta and Mortenson were both nominated for Academy Awards for their performances in Pulp Fiction and Green Book, respectively. Additionally, LaBeouf is a BAFTA winner for his performance in Honey Boy, while Pidgeon was nominated for an NBR Award, and Love was nominated for a Golden Globe.
David Mamet, the director of Assassination, is just as undeniably talented as John Travolta, Al Pacino, and the rest of the cast. Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose work has been nominated for a Tony Award, multiple Academy Awards, and Golden Globes, and he is a BAFTA nominee. He is most well-known for penning the 1997 political dramedy Wag the Dog starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro.
Arclight Films Chairman Gary Hamilton says that the stars have aligned for Assassination, claiming that the film “is a riveting and gripping thriller set in a pivotal period in American history, brilliantly crafted by Mamet – it’s an absolutely fantastic project.”
While there has been no announcement yet on who John Travolta, Al Pacino, and the rest will play in the film, a synopsis for the political thriller has been released. Based on the true events of the JFK assassination, the movie will re-imagine his death and be told as though the assassination were a hit ordered by the kingpin of the Chicago mob as payback for Kennedy’s betrayal towards the crime organization after they helped him get elected to office.
In many ways, the upcoming John Travolta and Al Pacino film is inspired by director Oliver Stone’s political thriller JFK released in 1991. The Warner Bros. film was based on the books On the Trail of the Assassins (1988) by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (1989) by Jim Marrs, which examined many conspiracy theories, including the idea that the mafia supported Kennedy. Mamet co-wrote the script for Assassination with Nicholas Celozzi, who is the grandnephew of Chicago mob kingpin Sam Giancana, the mafia leader the script suggests ordered the hit on JFK.
Assassination is being created for the Cannes market and currently does not have a slated release date as it is still in the pre-production process. In the meantime, John Travolta and Al Pacino have remained busy in Tinseltown, and both have several upcoming projects in the works. Next up for Travolta are The Shephard, Mob Land, and Cash Out, which are all in post-production and set to release soon, while Pacino’s Knox Goes Away and Billy Knight have also wrapped production and are in the post-production phase as well.
