So few people believe me when I tell them this that I started to think I’d imagined it

Thank the God of your understanding that everyone involved in this project is too old now:

Back in 1998, Martin Scorsese was developing a biopic of the Rat Pack, [me: based on the acclaimed Toches bio, Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams] centered around Dean Martin. (…)

Variety reported that Scorsese wanted Tom Hanks as Dean Martin, John Travolta as Frank Sinatra, [me: and the rest could have worked fine to great] Hugh Grant as Peter Lawford, Adam Sandler as Joey Bishop, and Jim Carrey as Jerry Lewis. No word on who he had in mind for Sammy Davis Jr.

Hanks and Travolta, amongst others, expressed interest, but production stalled when Martin Scorsese inked a deal to make Gangs of New York. He planned on returning to Dino after Gangs, but he ended up pushing it back again.

Believe it or not, it gets worse:

Scorsese began developing a Sinatra-centric Rat Pack biopic last year, planning to cast Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro as older versions of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin…

***
Scorsese needs to make this movie instead, but don’t count on it.

PS: I assumed that our “family’s” “Christmas movie,” The Hebrew Hammer, was a personal project of Adam Goldberg’s, so the revelation here is a surprise.

I can’t imagine anyone else in the role, but he was the last choice.