More than three decades after filming Rain Man in Greater Cincinnati, and making the city a destination for Hollywood studios, director Barry Levinson will shoot a 1950s gangster movie called Wise Guys here starring Oscar-winner Robert De Niro.
Local casting director D. Lynn Meyers broke the news Friday when she announced on Facebook she was "looking for lots of different extras" for Wise Guys.
Hollywood entertainment websites — which have been writing about the De Niro-Levinson Wise Guys film since August — say that De Niro will likely play dual roles in the 1950s mob drama.
The plot follows Italian American crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, who each ran their respective families in the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese tried (and failed) to assassinate Costello, who was ultimately injured and attempted to retire from the mafia, according to Variety.
"We're excited to start casting on our next Cincinnati, OH feature movie, THE WISE GUYS!" Meyer wrote. "Looking for lots of different extras, but especially anybody who is of Italian descent or who looks like they could be a NY mobster in the 1950s. All paid. Please send photo, contact, and sizes to wiseguysextras@gmail.com."
Wise Guys will be the fifth feature film shot this year in Cincinnati, and the third currently in production or pre-production. Film Cincinnati announced Friday that Cincinnati native KiKi Layne would soon shoot Dandelion here, while The Bikeriders continues to film in the area.
Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, won four Academy Awards in 1989 for best picture, actor (Hoffman), director (Levinson) and writing for a screenplay written directly for the screen.
Although Eight Men Out, Molly Ringwald's Fresh Horses and a few other films were shot here in the mid-1980s, Rain Man put Cincinnati on Hollywood's radar and led to the creation of the Cincinnati Film Commission, now called Film Cincinnati.
Lost In Yonkers, Tango & Cash, Little Man Tate, A Range in Harlem, Milk Money, In Too Deep and Traffic soon followed.
Rain Man earned Levinson his only Oscar in five nominations. On the other hand, De Niro has two Oscars: for The Godfather Part II (1975) and Raging Bull (1981).
De Niro and Levinson are old friends. They've worked together on Wag the Dog, Sleeper, the HBO series The Wizard of Lies and What Just Happened. Levinson also is known for Good Morning Vietnam, Diner, Toys, Bugsy, Tin Men, and HBO's The Survivor. He also directed two episodes of Hulu’s Dopesick.
Actress Katherine Narducci, who appeared in The Irishman with De Niro, will play Anna Genovese in the film. The Internet Movie Database also says that Will & Grace star Debra Messing is "rumored" to be in the film.
Nicholas Pileggi, the co-writer of Martin Scorsese’s crime epic Goodfellas, which starred De Niro, wrote Wise Guys. Variety notes that Goodfellas was based on Pileggi’s 1985 book “Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, but it's unrelated to Levinson’s new movie.
Irwin Winkler, a producer on the Rocky franchise and Goodfellas, will be a producer on Wise Guys, Deadline reported in August.
Hollywood producers are attracted here by the like Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit, which provides a refundable tax credit of 30% on production cast and crew wages plus other eligible in-state spending.
