Before cementing his status among a new generation of filmgoes as "the grumpy puss grandpa from the 'Meet the Parents' movies," Robert De Niro used to play truly unsavory characters to great effect. It looks like Bernie Madoff may give the man a chance to get down and dirty once again.
The Hollywood Reporter is saying that HBO and De Niro's Tribeca Productions are teaming up to adapt Laurie Sandell's book "Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family" (which the author wrote with the cooperation of Bernie's son, Andrew, and Andrew's mother, Ruth) and that De Niro himself will star in the spotlight role.
John Burnham Schwartz, who penned the "Reservation Road" screenplay, has been tapped to adapt Sandell's book.
Madoff, of course, is the infamous Wall Street Ponzi schemer who bilked people out of $65 million and quickly became the poster boy for all that is wrong with the country's financial institutions. As we know, taking on the wealthy and corrupt is hot at the box office these days.
