Robert De NiroDespite previously insisting that he'd never play a mobster again, Robert De Niro has been pulled back in, this time to star in a movie based on (sigh) another unpublished novel. (Though if I was offered the chance to play a character named "Frankie Machine," I have to say that I'd be sorely tempted as well.)

The novel, which tells the story of "a retired mafia hit man who is pulled back into business after an assassination attempt," will be called The Winter of Frankie Machine, and is the latest work from well-reviewed author/screenwriter Don Winslow. While De Niro is already in place as producer of the movie, it sounds as if Winslow will not adapt his own novel for the screen; who will do so has not yet been determined.