We know this is going to come as an upset, but sometimes the internet lies. Oh we know, it's hard to take, but it only tells untruths sometimes. Several websites, including Wikipedia, have reported that Martin Scorsese will join Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for a cameo in Righteous Kill, the pair's post-Heat re-team, in which they play a pair of cops on the hunt for a serial killer. This is, sadly, bull pucky.
"We were all a little surprised by that one!" laughed producer Rob Cowan when Empire questioned the truth of the casting during a recent chat. "I don’t know where the rumour about Scorsese being their commanding officer came from. It was a good story. The character it said on the internet he would be playing is being played by Brian Dennehy".
Cowan says that rather than having to persuade the two greatest actors of their generation to reunite, it was actually they who were keen to work together again, after hunting for another project they could do together since completing Heat. And where the two barely shared screentime in Michael Mann's 1995 classic, Cowan says that the legends appear together on screen for "about 90 per cent" of Righteous Kill.
"Unlike Heat, this time they’re a team," he continues. "They’re two very distinct characters. De Niro’s is much more of a guy who, in his face and mannerisms, carrying the weight of all the years he’s been a cop; Pacino’s is, if not flippant, a guy who takes things a lot more lightly. And so that allows for an interesting dynamic when they play off each other...But, y'know, this isn't Lethal Weapon!".
For more exclusive access to Righteous Kill, pick up the new issue of Empire, on sale Friday.