How hard is it to get film financing? Just ask John Travolta. For a few years he hoped to play John Gotti, but the project fell apart because no one involved had real money and the key producer was an ex con.

Now Travolta– who’s already moving to TV from film playing Robert Kardashian in American Crime Story–is trying once more. He’s set to star in something called “I Am Wrath.”  The players are an eclectic group. The director, Chuck Russell, formerly known as Charles Russell, hasn’t worked in 12 years but did make “The Mask” and “Eraser” in the mid 90s. “Wrath” has a swollen list of 8 executive producers and 3 actual producers (they’re the people who actually make the movie).

At least one of the EP’s — Richard Rionda Del Castro — comes with questionable baggage. In 2012, Del Castro the head of Hannibal Pictures, was accused of allegedly forging a signature from an employee of Film Finances, the bond company on a 2011 movie no one ever saw called “The Big Bang” with Antonio Banderas. (It went straight to video.)

Del Castro’s only other high profile project was the late great George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack,” the 2010 a drama about the life of Jack Abramoff, starring Kevin Spacey. It also went straight to video (although it’s worth a look if you’re a “House of Cards” fan.) Del Castro is the subject of an internet campaign by William Richert, an actor (“My Own Private Idaho”) who directed a 1998 feature called “The Man in the Iron Mask” (not the one with Leonardo Di Caprio). Richert — who says he was burned by Del Castro — wrote in his post: ” Individuals and groups like Rionda and his company, Hannibal Pictures, hurt a whole culture of struggling artists, actors, directors, producers and artisans with their bogus sales reports and false contract listings.”

Rionda is also infamous for suing “Real Housewife” Sonja Morgan. He said she reneged on financing a film.

Some of the other producers of “Wrath” include billionaire Haim Saban’s 25 year old Ness, Richard Salvatore (who comes with money from the Magnolia Bakery)  and Patricia Eberle, who boasts a resume of straight to video B movies — the kind you see for sale in the Cannes market but have never heard of, including “Casino Jack.”

Travolta replaced Nicolas Cage in “Wrath.” The Oscar winner dropped out of the revenge movie (the main character is avenging his murdered daughter, a la “Taken”)– and he’s not picky about his projects, as we know. William Friedkin was the original director, but he left with Cage.

Most recently, Travolta’s “Gotti” project went bust when the producer, Marc Fiore, was revealed in this column as an ex-con with mob ties and a bad history on Wall Street. Some of these productions now have echoes of “Get Shorty,” the Travolta film of long ago in which he played a mobster trying to get a movie made.

Having eight executive producers is not a strange situation for Travolta anymore. Another coming feature, “The Forger,” is set up similarly. Another one, called “Criminal Activities,” has 11 EPs. And “Life on the Line” has a mix of 11 EPs and producers. None of them are likely to bring Travolta back to the Oscars any time soon.

UPDATE SUNDAY 11:40am: Total was $19 million. It was at least $1 million less than any predictions other than mine below. Everyone said $20 mil or more. If Smith didn’t get at least $10 million of it, that would be fine. The domestic total should come to around $65 million. Let’s hope for better things in December with “Concussion.”

EARLIER: Will Smith didn’t stay in “Focus” last night. His latest film opened to $6.465 million, his lowest opening since 2008. That disaster was the awful, depressing “Seven Pounds.” Since then he’s been in “Men in Black 3” and “After Earth.” The latter opened to $9.8 million and and sank quickly, ending up with a domestic box office of $60.5 million.

It’s unclear whether “Focus” will have better legs. Right now predictions are a weekend finish of $19 million if lucky. But it’s clear that the affable Smith, who radiates charm and is certainly a welcome presence on movie screens, has to re think what’s going on here.

Once he was the go-to star for July 4th weekend. That isn’t the case anymore. It’s odd that he passed on the sequel to “Independence Day,” one movie that fans would clamor to see him in. Perhaps his attitude toward aliens has changed since then.

We all know the ratings for the Oscars were dismal. Some people blamed it on the low box office numbers for seven of the eight nominees except “American Sniper.”

Well, since the Oscars on Sunday night, the nominees still in theaters haven’t done a lot of business. There was no big bounce from the show. The sole exception might be “Still Alice,” with the Best Actress performance by Julianne Moore. “Alice” is 765 theaters. On Wednesday it had the unique distinction of making more money than the Wachowskis’ “Jupiter Ascending,” which is in 2,503 theaters.

But the others– “Birdman,” “Theory of Everything,” “Selma,” and “Into the Woods”– didn’t exactly turn people away so far this week. Curiosity didn’t drive people into theaters. “The Imitation Game” did a little better, but not much.

The exception, of course, was “American Sniper,” which has made almost $3 million since Monday. Clint Eastwood gets the last laugh. A few years ago, the Academy ignored one of his masterpieces, “Gran Torino.” It went on to make $148 million. “Sniper” is already over $322 million domestically and going very strong.