Robert De Niro confirms he'll re-team with Al Pacino for new Martin Scorsese film

Credit: AP Photo

Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese are all legends - and the powerhouse trio may be teaming up for a new film.

In a recent interview with the Guardian while doing press rounds for David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," De Niro was asked whether he ever planned on re-teaming with Scorsese, who he last collaborated with on the 1995 Vegas Mafia epic "Casino." The Oscar winner went on to offer a promising update on "I Heard You Paint Houses" (a.k.a. "The Irishman"), the previously-announced Scorsese crime thriller that has him attached to star as mobster-cum-labor-union-official-cum-alleged-Jimmy-Hoffa-killer Frank Sheeran. So are rumored co-stars Pacino and Joe Pesci still in the offing? According to De Niro, the answer is a definite "yes" - and furthermore, the project may be shaping up for a start date.

"We're working on something now," answered De Niro to the Scorsese reunion question. "It's called 'I Heard You Paint Houses.' We've been trying to get it going for a couple of years and now we're just trying to set a time. It's about a guy called Frank Sheeran who was in the Teamsters [a US union] and claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa [the controversial union leader who disappeared in 1975]. It's based on a book by Charles Brandt who was Sheeran's lawyer. I'd play Frank Sheeran and Pacino would play Hoffa. Joe Pesci would be in it too."

So will this be happening soon? As noted by De Niro, "It has to or we all won't be around any more."

For the record, De Niro and Pacino have co-starred in a total of three films: 1974's "The Godfather Part II," 1995's "Heat" and the critically-panned Jon Avnet thriller "Righteous Kill" in 2008. If "Houses" materializes, it will represent the latter's first-ever collaboration with Scorsese.

Would you like to see a De Niro-Pacino-Scorsese collaboration on the big-screen?