Back in 2023, two solid industry sources confirmed to me that Paul Thomas Anderson rewrote “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and ever since then the rumors have only grown louder.
None of the trades reported on it. Was this out of respect for credited “Killers” screenwriter Eric Roth? Why should such a story be buried? It’s a big deal—Scorsese and PTA collaborating on a film together—and the fact that it hasn’t been publicly acknowledged is baffling.
Anyways, while promoting “One Battle After Another,” PTA was finally asked (via Dazed) about the “rumors” of his uncredited writing on “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon”:
I love to contribute in any way I can if somebody reaches out for help. Both of those things were a thing with Joaquin [Phoenix], a thing with Leo, and obviously with Marty and Ridley. It’s always a privilege to say, ‘Let me tell you my thoughts on the script […] They made me feel encouraged and confident.
I’ll get to some of the details that have come out about the PTA rewrites, but it’s worth noting that credited “Killers” screenwriter Eric Roth did admit to having “mixed feelings” about the finished product (via Final Draft)
Leonardo was concerned that it would be too much of a great white hope story, so he decided to play the other part, which is fine—except I had already written five years’ worth of scripts. I have some mixed feelings about the movie, not—um—I love the movie overall, and Marty made an incredibly sorrowful and accurate portrayal of what we did to these people and the greed. I think it’s a very important movie. I just wish it had more entertainment. I love Tom White, the [originally conceived] main character who Jesse Plemons ended up playing. I wish we had more of him.
This wasn’t the only interview where Roth threw shade at the film; he has mentioned multiple times how much he preferred the original, unfilmed draft of the screenplay.
The story goes that DiCaprio was originally supposed to play FBI agent Tom White, the lead role in the film. Then came a complete overhaul. Scorsese and DiCaprio decided that, instead of telling the story from the FBI’s point of view as they investigated the Osage murders, they would shift the focus to the Osage Nation.
Lily Gladstone previously stated that “Killers” was a “different movie than the one [Scorsese] walked in to make,” largely because of the Osage community’s feedback about portraying white men as heroic saviors. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she admitted that when she first signed on—and with Roth’s original draft of “Killers”—she only had three scenes in the entire script.
I wasn’t the only one claiming PTA’s involvement in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” In January 2024, The Guardian’s Charles Bramesco reported (via X) that Roth wasn’t on the awards circuit for “Killers” because he didn’t actually write most of the film, and that “pretty much the entire thing was written from scratch” by PTA.