Martin Scorsese’s Netflix epic The Irishman received a total of ten Academy Award nominations including Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. We’ll have to wait and see how many statuettes Scorsese’s latest masterpiece will win on 9 February. However, the hype machine has already started on the director’s next project – Killers of the Flower Moon.
There had been prior speculation that two of Scorsese’s favourite actors – Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro – were already on board, and that is was not a new casino movie (as confirmed by DiCaprio at the recent SAG Awards). Both actors have given some of their best performances under Scorsese in multiple films. We have seen DiCaprio and De Niro in This Boy’s Life and Marvin’s Room, but Killers of the Flower Moon would be the first film where the actors share the screen together in a project directed by Scorsese.
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the US journalist David Grann’s non-fiction book of the same title which was released in 2017. According to its Wikipedia page, the book “investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s – after big oil deposits were discovered beneath their land”. The book also tells the story of the birth of the FBI. Shooting is said to begin in a few months and Eric Roth (A Star Is Born, Forrest Gump) will be a screenwriter.
There were rumours after The Irishman wrapped that Scorsese would cast DiCaprio in a film adaption of the non-fiction book The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, starring the actor as serial killer H.H Holmes, before the project was handed over to Hulu as a mini-series produced by Paramount. Another Variety report also claimed a few years ago that DiCaprio would play U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in a movie directed by Scorsese. However, as of now, Killers of the Flower Moon is the only upcoming Marty project featuring the actor.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon will be handled by Paramount Pictures. De Niro has yet to be officially confirmed that he is part of the film – but we trust Leo.
