I don’t recall a director ever taking my advice before, but that’s apparently what Nick Cassavetes did when he dropped out of the impending trainwreck that is “Gotti: Three Generation.” The producers said in a statement that Cassavetes had a “scheduling conflict” with the shoot for an indie called “Yellow,” but who’s kidding who here?

Cassavetes didn’t know about the conflict when he attended a press conference for the Gotti movie less than a week ago? That he’s choosing to instead helm a movie with a $3 million budget whose biggest names are Ben Foster and Sienna Miller tells you a lot of what he thinks about the prospects of the Gotti movie, which as described at that press conference sounded like a feature-length rationalization for the assorted crimes of John Gotti Sr. and Jr., played by John Travolta and yet-to-be-cast actor.

By coincidence, Sylvester Stallone announced more or less simultaneously that he wouldn’t be directing the second “Expendables” movie. He did a pretty inept job on the first one, if you ask me, but I think he’d be perfect for the Gotti project (if it ever happens, which seems increasingly less likely).

I’d understand if Travolta was reluctant for a reunion with the auteur behind his notorious (if profitable) “Staying Alive,” but apparently he’s still friends with Stallone. And Sly might be able to stand up to the Gottis and their apologists like producers Marc Fiore and Marty (“I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster”) Ingels. And perhaps Stallone could administer some tough love to Lindsay Lohan, who’s “in negotations” to play Victoria Gotti (translation: she will, if the producers can find someone dumb enough to insure her participation).