The Payoff (Italian: La mazzetta) is an Italian crime comedy film directed in 1978 by Sergio Corbucci. It is based on the 1976 crime novel of the same name by the writer Attilio Veraldi.[2]
Following the commercial success of the movie it was planned a movie-adaptation from the Veraldi's second novel based on the character of Sasà Jovine, L'uomo di conseguenza (1978), still directed by Sergio Corbucci and starred by Marcello Mastroianni in the role of Jovine. After a series of meetings Mastroianni declined: he was not enthusiast to resume a character already successfully performed by Nino Manfredi and the plot of the sequel involved incest, a scabrous subject he had treated the same year in the movie Stay As You Are. The production then decided to make him play a story with a tone more similar to La mazzetta but not based on any novel, Neapolitan Mystery.[3]
Attilio Veraldi. La mazzetta. Rizzoli, 1976.