The Hollywood comedy My Cousin Vinny, starring Joe Pesci as a makeshift lawyer who gets his nephew and a friend freed from a murder rap, is getting an update via the novel Back to Brooklyn, Deadline reported.
The novel is being written by Lawrence Kelter. “The Brooklyn attorney obtained the rights and absolution from screenwriter Dale Launer, the Writers Guild, and 20th Century Fox to do a new novel based on the characters,” the website reported. “The result is Back to Brooklyn (Down and Out Books) which updates the beloved characters from the film 25 years after their Alabama courtroom drama.”
In the comedy, directed by Jonathon Lynn, Pesci’s Vincent Gambini helps his cousin escape from a trumped-up murder charge in rural Alabama with some help from his girlfriend Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei).
Mona Lisa’s “biological clock” sequence is among the many highlights of the movie, which was ripped off by Bollywood as the unreleased movie Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, starring Govinda, Salman Khan and Tabu.
Kelter, who has written crime novels in the past, “reached out to Launer merely as a fan of the film”, Deadline reported. “They hit it off and began a friendship that blossomed when Launer liked one of Kelter’s novels.” In Back to Brooklyn, Vinny is working on a murder case in Brooklyn. “But domestic issues still plague him – he hasn’t married Lisa, and his career as an attorney really hasn’t taken wing, despite the Alabama triumph, leading to financial problems,” said the Deadline report. “Finally, he is hired to help a woman accused of killing her boyfriend, whose brother is the deputy mayor of New York City.”
