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Harvey Keitel to Play Gangster Meyer Lansky in Biopic (EXCLUSIVE)

Harvey Keitel will star as notorious gangster Meyer Lansky, a contemporary of Bugsy Siegel, in a biopic directed by Eytan Rockaway. Sam Worthington, Emory Cohen and Austin Stowell are also set to star in the picture, with Alexandra Daddario and Tony Danza in talks to join.

Voltage Pictures has boarded the project and hopes to spark international sales at Cannes. Rockaway wrote the script from a story by Ido Fluk and Sharon Mashihi, partially based on interviews with the real-life Lansky conducted by Rockaway’s father, history professor Robert Rockaway.

The film centers on an aging Lansky living in anonymity in Miami Beach after being investigated and pursued for decades by the FBI. When he enlists a young journalist named David Stone (Worthington) to tell his story, the Feds use him as a pawn to track down the hundreds of millions of dollars that the mobster has been suspected of stashing.

Stone finds himself caught in the middle of a game of cat and mouse, uncovering the hidden truth about the life of the notorious boss of Murder Inc. and the National Crime Syndicate.

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Principal photography starts in August. The producers are Robert Ogden Barnum and Jeff Hoffman alongside Rainmaker Films’ Russell Geyser and Clay Pecorin. Executive producers are Voltage’s CEO Nicolas Chartier and Jonathan Deckter alongside Mark Holder, Christine Holder, Lee Broda and Jeff Rice.

“Eytan’s fierce talent and unparalleled access to the psyche of Meyer Lansky will elevate ‘Lansky’ to genre-best status,” said Deckter. “Under his stewardship, and with the gifted Sam, Austin and Emory leading the charge, we can’t wait to share this mind-blowing story with audiences. Rob and Jeff have put together another exceedingly creative and commercial project.”

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