Way back in 1992, Martin Scorsese acquired the film rights to "Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams," Nick Tosches' brilliant biography of Dean Martin. Nick Pileggi, who wrote the "Casino" script and the book it was based on, signed on to write the screenplay and Tom Hanks was considered a lock to play Dino.
The film was never made, forgotten until this week when Scorsese announced that he would direct a Frank Sinatra biography from a new script by "Field of Dreams" writer Phil Alden Robinson. No matter how good a Scorsese-Sinatra film might be, there's no way it could compare to Tosches' underworld-loaded take on Martin's life. "Dino" would have been the third film in a trilogy that included "Goodfellas" and "Casino."
Check out the Sinatra announcement here or buy yourself a copy of "Dino" at Amazon.
James Barber has written about music and movies for Slate, Blender, Good and AlltheMusicNews.com. He is also a record producer, band manager and was an A&R guy at Geffen/DGC Records. He has never been a celebrity chef in Canada, even though he gets a lot of internet fan mail for that guy.
