Here’s a troubling new trend coming out of Hollywood: Martin Scorsese needs help making his next movie.
The Wall Street Journal has the details about Scorsese meeting with Apple, Netflix and others as he looks for a new home for his next epic, Killers Of The Flower Moon. The movie was originally set up at Paramount Pictures but they eventually let the project go after the budget ballooned up to somewhere north of $200 million. Now Scorsese is on the hunt for a new studio to finance and distribute the sure-to-be great film.
Killers Of The Flower Moon is based on the book by David Grann and tells the brutal tale of a slew of murders in the 1920s. The victims were all part of the Native American Osage tribe. The newly-formed FBI began looking into the killings and soon found a vast conspiracy behind it all. Murder, history, crime, money — this sounds right up Scorsese’s alley. It is no surprise that the filmmaker has been wanting to make this movie for awhile, with both Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro signed on to co-star.. Sadly he just doesn’t want to do this for cheap.
So now that Paramount has let the movie go, Scorsese and his team are trying to find someone, anyone, to take it on. Netflix makes the most sense considering they released Scorsese’s last film, The Irishman, which was a huge critical success and earned a bunch of Oscar nominations. As well, Scorsese — who was once very critical of releasing movies on Netflix — praised the company and enjoyed working with them. No one would be surprised if they picked up Killers Of The Flower Moon. But what if Apple makes a hard push for the movie? They are still trying to get their Apple TV+ off the ground and a prestige pic from Scorsese would surely help bring them a lot of buzz. Plus, what’s $200 million to Apple? So there are options.
But you have to assume that in his heart of hearts, Scorsese wants a traditional studio — and theatrical release — for this film. He is a cinema purist and wants his movies to run on the big screen. He tried hard to make that happen with The Irishman but Netflix and theatrical distributors couldn’t see eye-to-eye and make a deal happen. We all know Marty was bummed about that and would hope to avoid that situation again. So you can bet he is pushing hard to have Killers picked up by someone like Fox or Warners Bros. But $200 is not chump change to them. $200 million is a lot. They can’t all have Apple money.
It’s a damn shame that we live in a day and age when someone like Martin Scorsese has trouble funding his features but I am sure this will eventually find a home. Still, you would like to think that studios would be falling over themselves to be a part of this movie. They should be bending over backwards to make Killers Of The Flower Moon.