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Travolta ‘Gotti’ film too gory: Jr.
Junior Gotti has a reel beef with the upcoming movie about his murderous mob-boss dad: “Way too much violence.”
“When Hollywood sees a mob movie, it has to be a bucket of blood, not family,” the godfather’s son told The Post. “If Hollywood gets the movie 70 percent correct, I’ll be thrilled.”
Still, the Mafia scion said John Travolta, who stars in “Gotti” as the Gambino crime-family boss, “acted the s- -t out of the film.”
While John “Junior” Gotti hasn’t seen the final cut of the beleaguered biopic, which had its Dec. 15 release indefinitely postponed last week, he was on the set for nine of the 27 days of shooting.
“The days I was there, John hit the ball out of the park,” Junior said.
The film, he said, does not stick to the narrative of his 585-page book, “Shadow of My Father,” from which it was adapted.
Gotti said the original screenplay was a “monster” 189 pages about his father’s “blood family,” which would have meant a four- or five-hour movie.
“The violence would have been appropriately staggered,” he said.
Now the blood gushes in a one-hour, 50-minute flick. The movie has had four directors — Barry Levinson, Joe Johnston, Nick Cassavetes and now “Entourage” alum Kevin Connolly, whom Gotti called a “Long Island guy who grew up not far from the Gotti stronghold.”
The Cassavetes version was “killings by the bucket,” including a ficti- tious scene with the Teflon Don “pulling up to a construction site with a dead guy in the back seat with a ‘Colombian necktie,’ ” Junior said, using a slang term for a brutal method of execution that involves slitting the throat.
Cassavetes was “an OK guy,” but he “failed miserably” at rewriting the screenplay, Junior said.
“To me it was ‘Jason’ meets ‘Goodfellas.’ It just wasn’t the story that wee had written,” he said.
Gotti said that Levinsonn toned down some of thee violence and that the result is a combination of the first and last screenplays, bloodier than Junior hoped for, but “less than what Hollywood wants it to be.””
He said that Travolta ad-dressed his concerns aboutt violence and that the actor was the “one constant” during filming.
He said Travolta “was so sure of his performance” that he negotiated a buy-- back clause with the studio, Lionsgate, and is now activating it to give the movie its “proper respect.”
Contrary to reports last week, Gotti said that the biopic wasn’t whacked by Lionsgate, but that its producers, led by Travolta, sought wider distribution and bought the movie back with the help of financier Edward Walson, whose résumé includes five Broadway plays and eight flicks, including Woody AllenAllen’ss new film, “Wonder Wheel.”
Gotti said Travolta invited Walson and his group for a private screening and Walson was “blown away.”
The new investors are looking to roll out the movie in May at the Cannes Film Festival.
Junior noted that “Gotti” will no longer have to go up against “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
Asked to sum up his dealings with Tinseltown, Gotti ssaid, “There was a hell of a lot more honor in the street.
“When you shake somebody’s hand and give your word — you have to honor it — or else. In Hollywood, there is no ‘or else.’ ”
Meanwhile, Junior said he was working on a book and documentary titled “WITSEC Mafia,” which exposes mob turncoats who commit crimes after living in the Witness Protection Program.
When Hollywood sees a mob m movie, it has to be a bucket of blood, not family. If Hollywood gets the movie 70 percent correct, I’ll be thrilled. . — John “Junior” Gotti (left), on “Gotti,” the upcoming film about his dad