De Niro to star in Hollywood satire

'What Just Happened?' casts the screen legend as a desperate producer

Oct 27 2005

Robert De Niro is to team up once again with director Barry Levinson on a satire of the film business.

'What Just Happened?' will be based on the real-life memoirs of Art Linson, who worked as a producer on such high-profile projects as 'Fight Club', 'Heat' and 'The Untouchables'.

The plot will follow an executive through the most difficult two weeks of his career as he battles to get a picture made.

De Niro will play the lead, marking his third collaboration with Levinson after 'Wag the Dog' and 'Sleepers', while Sean Penn will make a cameo appearance as himself. Other stars are expected to do the same when filming gets underway next summer.

'Art knows this game as well as anybody and has distilled the essence of the business into his script,' Levinson told Variety. 'A flat-out, full-bore comedy isn't what we are going for here, but rather an insider's look at the extraction of humanity that goes on.'