5 Directors Who Could Replace Nick Cassavetes on Gotti: Three Generations

That was fast. Just one week after appearing at a press conference in New York to officially announce his involvement in Gotti: Three Generations, director Nick Cassavetes has left the project due to scheduling conflicts; he'll tackle the indie film Yellow instead. With John Travolta and Joe Pesci already lined up for the cast (Lindsay Lohan is also rumored to be in talks) and a start date scheduled for the fall, a replacement for Cassavetes at the helm of Gotti is needed, post-haste. Thankfully for all involved, Movieline is here! Ahead, five suggestions for who Fiore Films can hire as Casavettes' replacement.

Darren Aronofsky

Let's start with the long shot. Fresh off an Oscar nomination -- and having been the chosen director for a big budget tent-pole like The Wolverine for a couple of months -- there is little chance Aronfosky would ever agree to direct Gotti: Three Generations at this point in his career. That said: Aronofsky is just the type of filmmaker who would make this project coarse with a grimy, New York realism. And think of the star-turn he might coax out of John Travolta, an actor who arguably hasn't given a good performance since 1998.

Mike Newell

When you look at Newell's resume over the last 20 years, the film that stands out most is Donnie Brasco, if only because it seems totally out of place. After all, this is the man behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mona Lisa Smile, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and, most recently, Prince of Persia. What was he doing directing a small-scale mafia story with Johnny Depp and Al Pacino in leading roles back in 1997? Well, killing it: Brasco remains one of the better mafia films in the post-Godfather era, and Newell would be wise to return to the milieu of one of his best works.

Edward Burns

You have to figure that at some point soon, Burns is going to have to take a director-for-hire job if he wishes to continue to produce his low-budget relationship films. Newlyweds -- his latest, which will close out the Tribeca Film Festival this year -- was made on a shoestring budget of $9,000. Can Burns continue to work on that economic scale without building up the coffers in the interim? If not, Gotti would be the perfect fit -- not only because Burns is a real New Yorker at heart, but because his only foray into the world of organized crime was the under-seen and underrated Ash Wednesday.

Lone Scherfig

"Whaaaaaaaat?" you shout to no one in particular. It's true, Scherfig -- who directed An Education and has the romcom One Day hitting theaters this summer -- isn't the first, second or fifth name you'd think of to direct a movie based on the Gotti family. But consider her statement during awards season in 2009: "Exploring the criminal mind is truly interesting and something I haven't done. I'm interested in someone more violent and more flawed." Does it get more violent and flawed than John Gotti?

Timothy Van Patten

A veteran television director with credits ranging from New York Undercover to The Sopranos to Boardwalk Empire, Van Patten just feels like the logical choice to helm Gotti: Three Generations, doesn't he? After all, the entire project seems like high-grade television anyway, and who better to direct it than the king of high-grade television. That Van Patten has experience turning monsters like Tony Soprano and Nucky Thompson into sympathetic anti-heroes is only gravy; here's guessing that type of needle-threading more than once when telling the story of John Gotti.