While we don’t know precisely how this project fell apart behind the scenes, if Scorsese is to be believed, the remaining Sinatra family members wanted the performer’s life to be handled with kid gloves.
As an entertainer, Frank Sinatra will always be best known as a singer first, actor second.
Scorsese, wanting to fully capture Sinatra’s complexity within a two-three hour time frame, wasn’t willing to compromise on that front, and the rest is history.