Paramount Pictures is returning to organized crime and is bringing Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro with them. The studio has attached Steve Zaillian to adapt I Heard You Paint Houses, a book by Charles Brandt about the mob assassin who many believe had something to do with the disappearance and presumed death of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.

According to Variety, Scorsese will direct and De Niro will play Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders.

The film's title refers to mob slang for contract killings, and the resulting blood splatter on walls and floors. Charles Brandt befriended Sheeran shortly before the Sheeran's death in 2003. Among the crimes Sheeran confessed to Brandt, according to the 2004 book, was the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino.

No production date has been set.