An update from Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise reveals a casting call for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon,” via a Google form, which confirms a seven-month shoot from February to September 2021 is being planned.
“This Covid, this pandemic, has stopped a creative process. I turned in on myself,” Scorsese told Empire before the holidays. “Particularly the first couple of months, when we were locked in our houses, it eliminated a lot of distraction. I have to find a way to get back to a singular creative impulse for my new film the way I had for Irishman. Cut away all the award ceremonies, all that stuff, and get back to being in a room alone with a project and wondering if I can do something again.”
Now, in an exclusive interview with the LA Times, Scorsese details the lengthy pre-production ‘Killers’ has had; “We’re still working on the film. I did costumes last night. We’re working on casting, all done by Zoom and FaceTime. I miss people. Normally, Fran is with us and a number of other people on New Year’s Eve. We used to screen a film and have Champagne right afterwards and watch the ball drop. This year, it was just myself and my wife, Helen. And we watched an empty Times Square. And the next day, our daughter was able to come over. That’s it.”
AppleTV+ and Scorsese are teaming up for the upcoming movie, which Paramount is still set to distribute. Supposedly, the budget on ‘Killers’ had inflated to a worrisome $225M and started to get Paramount a little worried about its commercial prospects. The troubled post-production on the film resulted in Scorsese reaching out to countless studios including Netflix, Universal, and MGM. Ultimately, AppleTV+ won out the rights.
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, but production was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then another scheduled June shoot was delayed to the virus. The film itself, an 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 2022 release primed and ready for Oscar season.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.