A rock solid English director gives up safe frills-and-flowers escapades to take on down-and-out Brooklyn mobsters? Fuggedaboudit! That has been the reaction from many quarters since it was announced that Four Weddings And A Funeral director Mike Newell would be taking his first stab at Hollywood with the unlikely Donnie Brasco.
'I knew that people would think it ridiculous that a person who had done all these girls and flowers movies should now decide he has the capability to do a man's movie,' said Newell, from his London office.
'The thing about that is that you simply follow where your luck leads you. For five years or so, my luck has led me towards girls and flowers. There was a time when I had done a lot of guy films and I was desperate to get back there. I was desperate not to have to do all that frilly stuff.' Naturally, that was not the only reason. Newell also fell in love with the script the minute he laid his eyes on it.
Newell admitted he had always 'lusted for' Hollywood, having grown up on a staple of American movies in the 1950s and 60s. The mega-success of Four Weddings gave the 53-year-old film-maker a chance to get into Tinseltown at a higher level and he was determined to choose wisely. He devoured script after script before Donnie Brasco leapt out at him.
The screenplay by Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, Disclosure ) is based on the book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia by real-life FBI undercover agent Joe Pistone, and recounts the six years Pistone spent as 'Donnie Brasco' infiltrating the infamous New York Bonanno crime family.
Ironically, even though the film has since been classified as 'crime drama', it was the story's romanticism and the fact it made him laugh that initially drew Newell.