{Exclusive} Brett Ratner To Adapt Crime Drama Based On “Goodfellas” Mobster Henry Hill

〉 Based on ESPN’s 30 For 30 installment, the story recounts Goodfellas mobster Henry Hill’s notorious sports gambling scandal.

Brett Ratner and his RatPac Entertainment shingle are in the works with a feature adaptation of PLAYING FOR THE MOB, which will recount the story of Henry Hill’s infamous scandal in which he fixed Boston College basketball games during the 1978-1979 season. The scandal was first documented on an installment on ESPN’s 30 For 30 docuseries directed by Joe Lavine and Cayman Grant. Agustine Calderon is overseeing for RatPac.

Hill’s name is best associated with the 1990’s mobster classic, Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Ray Liotta as Hill, the film recounted his rise through the criminal underworld and his involvement in one of the biggest cash robberies in U.S. history–the Lufthansa heist.

But Goodfellas left out a fascinating piece of Hill’s story: Around the time of the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist, Hill was hard at work bribing key players and officials to fix basketball games in Boston. The ESPN 30 For 30 installment revealed the story through the testimony of the players involved, the federal investigators, the fixers and Hill himself–who died shortly after he was interviewed.

Although the details of Ratner’s Playing For The Mob haven’t been entirely fleshed out, sources say it will likely be a dramatic retelling that follows Hill’s involvement in sports gambling versus a film focused on basketball itself. It will likely be cut from the same Scorsese-esque cloth as Goodfellas, as well as other sports gambling movies like The Gambler and Eight Men Out. Ratner is certainly a good fit for the project considering he served as executive producer on Black Mass, a film that focused on another notorious mobster: Whitey Bulger.

Ratner is repped by WME.

—TO SEE ALL THE PROJECT DETAILS CLICK HERE—

Dino-Ray Ramos | Staff Writer