What really happened during the 48 hours leading up to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — at least according to mob bosses — is heading to the big screen in the upcoming film “November 1963: The Killing of a President.”
The mob’s version of events were passed down to Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana’s nephew, Nicholas Celozzi, by Sam’s brother, the late Joseph “Pepe” Giancana, who drove around with his brother Sam during those two days.
“The reason why there’s this fascination or anxiety is because people know that what they’ve heard so far doesn’t make sense,” Celozzi tells Variety of the ongoing interest in the circumstances surrounding JFK’s assassination, even 60 years later. “They keep talking about it because they’re waiting to hear something that makes more common sense.”
Celozzi, whose film producing and writing credits include “The Legitimate Wiseguy,” “The Class” and the documentary “Momo: The Sam Giancana Story,” penned the screenplay based on what Pepe told him. Pepe told young Celozzi, who already was in the film business, to share the story one day.
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“My uncle and I were very close when I was a little little kid,” Celozzi recalls. Even though he always knew the story was ripe for a film adaptation, he waited for the appropriate moment to tell it.
The project, formerly known as “2 Days/1963” and “Assassination,” was previously set up to star Courtney Love, Viggo Mortensen, Shia LaBeouf, Al Pacino and John Travolta, with David Mamet to direct and co-write with Celozzi. Barry Levinson later stepped in as director, but the project never came to fruition.
The story took new life when Sam Giancana’s middle daughter (and Celozzi’s cousin), Bonnie Giancana, came on board. “To be quite frank with you, she didn’t like the people I was working with at the time. She wasn’t ready to personally get involved as well. So there were two things that kind of held her back. And then when I kind of broke free and started changing individuals that I was working with, she was more apt to come along and work with me on the story,” Celozzi says.
“I’m not going to fictionalize,” he adds. “I’m staying with his story, as opposed to adding my own interpretation. I wrote everything down and just relaying his story. And that’s the screenplay that I wrote.”
Roland Joffe, the two-time Academy Award nominee for “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission” (which won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival), has been signed to direct.
“I’m so excited to be working with Roland Joffe,” Celozzi says. “He’s a top-notch director and brilliant storyteller. When I sent the screenplay to Roland, he said to me, ‘I feel like I’m trapped in a submarine when I’m reading this.’ I said, ‘That’s it! I want you to feel claustrophobic.’ He just got it.”
Joffe recently completed directing the Civil War drama limited series “The Gray House” for Paramount, starring Daisy Head and Mary Louise Parker and executive produced by Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Leslie Grief and Lori McCreary.
“This film is a passing down family legacy by reciting history as told to me by Sam’s brother Pepe Giancana. There are lots of theories out there about who killed JFK, and I just wanted to set the record straight,” Celozzi says. “We are simply laying out the facts, for better or worse. The Outfit in Chicago thought they would never pull it off.”
During the active years of The Outfit, “they controlled the unions and the theaters and that allowed them to have a grip over Hollywood — and take a cut of the grosses when these movies played at their theaters. Back in the day, the government could not exist without the help of organized crime,” Celozzi adds, referencing the CIA’s practice of allegedly hiring the mafia for “cleanup” purposes.
“November 1963” will be produced by Celozzi and Kevin DeWalt of Minds Eye Entertainment. Sam Giancana’s daughter Bonnie Giancana will serve as executive producer. Michael Sportelli will also executive produce, along with Daniel Bauer and Oda Schaefer from K5 International. The deal was brokered by David Gersh of the Gersh Agency, Alan Abrams and Joshua Howie from McKercher LLP.
Principal casting is underway.
K5 International will sell and distribute the film outside North America. K5 International CEO Daniel Bauer said, “We are thrilled to team up with Nicholas, Kevin and Roland to bring this unheard story about JFK to the world. This will shine a new light to one of the most discussed and debated event in the American history.”
