Back in February, we seemed to be the only outlet reporting that, after their successful partnership on “The Irishman” streaming giant Netflix and Martin Scorsese were again trying to team up for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” albeit, this time, in much messier circumstances.
Supposedly, the budget for the upcoming Scorsese-directed Paramount-distributed film had inflated to a worrisome $225M that it started to get Paramount a little too anxious about the commercial prospects of the film, which led Scorsese to call Netflix to settle a rights and distribution deal for ‘Killers.’
The Wall Street Journal has now officially confirmed what we suspected in late February [via a report] that, indeed, Scorsese’s representatives are trying to get either Netflix or, even, AppleTV+ to produce and/or distribute the star-studded crime-thriller. The WSJ adds that Scorsese also reached out to Universal and MGM.
Scorsese’s last movie (“The Irishman”) was a Netflix original with an equally expensive $173 million budget. However, ‘Killers’ is said to cost $50 million more than that figure and has gotten Paramount very antsy about the whole thing. Has Scorsese been so spoiled by the creative and budgetary freedoms given to him by Netflix on “The Irishman” that he’d rather bypass all the back-and-forth artistic clashing involved with a big studio by, again, being given total creative carte blanche by Netflix? That’s what it looks like.
It seems as though Scorsese has learned to stop worrying about theatrical and love streaming.
The 77-year-old director of such classics as “Goodfellas,” “Raging Bull,” and “Taxi Driver” was set to shoot “Killers of the Flower Moon” in March (via Premiere), but production was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film, his adaptation of David Grann's grisly murder-mystery novel, is set to star Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The screenplay, written by Eric Roth, takes place in 1920s Oklahoma and tells the story of a corrupt FBI investigation on Osage Indians who suddenly start to get murdered.
There is currently no release date for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” but one assumes the possibility of a fall 2021 release primed and ready for Oscar season.
I actually find that number optimistic. Tickets for “Digger” go on sale next Tuesday, and presales will give us a better picture of how bad it’s looking.