Paramount Pictures has set Steve Zaillian to adapt “I Heard You Paint Houses,” the book about the mob assassin who many believe was involved in the death of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Martin Scorsese is attached to direct. Robert De Niro will play Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders. The film will be produced by Scorsese and Tribeca partners De Niro and Jane Rosenthal.
The film’s title refers to mob slang for contract killings, and the resulting blood splatter on walls and floors. Variety says the book was written by Charles Brandt, who befriended Sheeran shortly before the latter’s death in 2003.
Among the crimes Sheeran confessed to Brandt, according to the 2004 book, was the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino.
