Disney Near Deal For Hawaii-Set Crime Pic With Scorsese, Dwayne Johnson, DiCaprio & Emily Blunt: The Dish

EXCLUSIVE: One of the biggest pic packages is about to land at Disney, Deadline hears.

This is the pitch for a Martin Scorsese-directed drama that would star Dwayne Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Blunt. The thumbnail description: Imagine Robert De Niro’s Jimmy the Gent character from Goodfellas but as a ruthless Hawaiian crime boss, also based on a real figure, who battled encroaching rivals for control of organized crime on the islands.

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Deadline broke the project in February. It is a pricey package given the local and above-the-line star power, and numerous distributors were bidding. This being a decidedly adult film, it fits nicely under the 20th Century banner, home to upcoming films including Deliver Me From Nowhere, the Scott Cooper-directed drama about the existential crisis that led Bruce Springsteen to hole up in a room and generate his seminal Nebraska album. The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White plays The Boss, and Jeremy Strong plays his longtime manager Jon Landau.

The pitch, written by Nick Bilton, focuses on a turbulent time on the island paradise when the aspiring mob boss battled elements like triads and U.S. military to wrest control. It was a bloody battle. The character is based on Wilford “Nappy” Pulawa, who led the largest organized crime syndicate on the Hawaiian Islands, The Company, in the 1970s. He ruled through a reputation for brutality and murder, terrain Scorsese covered in both Goodfellas and The Departed.

The Company’s rackets included gambling, human trafficking, marijuana trafficking and labor corruption. Eventually charged with two murders, Pulawa got 15 years for tax evasion in 1973, and he was released in 1984. In 1975, Nevada barred him for life from entering the state’s casinos.

Producers include Scorsese, Johnson, Blunt, DiCaprio, Bilton, Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette and LBI Entertainment’s Rick Yorn and Chris Donnelly.

I’ll relay more when it becomes official. It is a career opportunity for Johnson, and it sounds like David Greenbaum has been the driving force here. He took the reins to be ambitious, and this sure fits that bill. This one fits well under the 20th Century banner under Steve Asbell. Stay tuned.

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