John Travolta Clears Air on Gotti Film's Ax 10 Days Before Debut

The upcoming John Travolta film “Gotti,” which was set to release Dec. 15, has been pulled from its planned limited release and will now be released more widely, the actor says. 

Reports that the film had been pulled from release just 10 days before its release caused speculation about whether it was being killed, but Travolta told Deadline the movie was moving forward and would have a wider release than was originally planned.

Travolta considers his "Gotti"performance one of the best of his career, so he secured financier Edward Walson to buy the film from Lionsgate Premiere and make a deal with a distributor that would release the film to more theaters, he told Deadline. 

“Unfortunately, the reports were speculation bordering on fake news,” Travolta told Deadline. 

“It’s a masterpiece. It’s one of the best mob movies I’ve seen in 40 years,” Executive Producer Keya Morgan told The Hollywood Reporter. “We pulled it, not the other way around. We did two recent screenings and had amazing feedback. We only had four to five days left in the contract to get the film out of their hands.”

Lionsgate confirmed that the filmmakers had pulled the movie, THR reported. 

Some of the speculation of the film's delay centered around accusations that Travolta allegedly sexually assaulted several masseuses in 2000 and 2012, THR said. He was never convicted of wrongdoing in those cases.

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