Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro have been in two movies together and have been very 50/50 so far. In 2007 they starred together in Stardust, a wonderful, underrated live-action fairy tale that helped introduce American audiences to director Matthew Vaughn. The other, unfortunately, was last year's New Year's Eve, which was an absolutely dreadful piece of work that neither acclaimed star should have had anything to do with. Hopefully, their third time working together will be more successful.
Variety has learned that Pfieffer is now in talks to join Malavita, the new film from director Luc Besson that already has De Niro attached. The project is based on the book "Badfellas" by Tonino Benacquista and is about a mafia family that gets relocated to France as part of the witness protection program. It's a fish out of water comedy that sees the family slowly begin to fall back into old habits. Pfieffer will play the mother of the family - and De Niro's wife - who "has a penchant for arson when crossed."
Besson will be making the film as his follow-up to last year's The Lady, which didn't earn much attention during awards season got got a lot of positive notice from critics. He will also be adapting Benacquista's novel himself and producing along with Relativity Media. Production on the project is scheduled to begin in August and the plan is to release it some time in 2013 (though no official release date has been set yet).
