Exclusive: Since Jack Dawson made him a top global star in Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio has largely avoided the straight hero route in favor of shaded, conflicted characters in films from The Revenant to The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood, and others. But he’d never gone to the degree he did on Killers of the Flower Moon. The first version of the film had almost everything going for it: the David Grann bestseller bought for a shocking $5 million by Imperative Entertainment, a script Eric Roth wrote, and the first teaming of Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, the latter going mano a mano for the first time since This Boy’s Life established a teenaged DiCaprio as the young actor to watch.
A green lit script that had DiCaprio playing the incorruptible Texas Ranger-turned FBI agent Tom White...
A green lit script that had DiCaprio playing the incorruptible Texas Ranger-turned FBI agent Tom White...
- 1/13/2024
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
Earlier this week, two filmmaking titans gathered for a special conversation. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who last chatted publicly about The Fabelmans, participated in a post-screening DGA talk following a screening of Killers of the Flower Moon. “You are the master of our medium and this is your masterpiece, Marty,” Spielberg told his dear friend.
While the conversation touched on a number of fascinating insights into the making of the historical epic, including how seeing Silence convinced the Osage consultants that Scorsese was the right choice to direct, Spielberg shared a particularly great bit: “It’s so amazing to see Bobby D and Leo D in this film together. This is your sixth collaboration with Leo and your eleventh with Bobby. You are only three films shy of tying the record with John Ford, who directed John Wayne fourteen times, so you can’t quit yet with Bobby.”
Speaking...
While the conversation touched on a number of fascinating insights into the making of the historical epic, including how seeing Silence convinced the Osage consultants that Scorsese was the right choice to direct, Spielberg shared a particularly great bit: “It’s so amazing to see Bobby D and Leo D in this film together. This is your sixth collaboration with Leo and your eleventh with Bobby. You are only three films shy of tying the record with John Ford, who directed John Wayne fourteen times, so you can’t quit yet with Bobby.”
Speaking...
- 11/16/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
When Eric Roth first adapted non-fiction master David Grann’s extraordinary 2017 work, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese weren’t feeling it.
The story was fascinating and terrible: A group of white men, some led by William “King” Hale, exploited and effectively exterminated at least 20 (and likely many more) members of the oil-rich Osage Nation in Oklahoma back in the 1920s. DiCaprio, in his sixth collaboration with Scorsese, was set to play the book’s riveting hero, FBI investigator Tom White, who solved many of the murders and put Hale in prison. Only problem was, after an early table read right before the pandemic, DiCaprio didn’t want to play White. He proposed that he should play Hale’s nephew, Ernest Burkhart, who executed many of the murders at his uncle’s behest.
A very different movie emerged,...
The story was fascinating and terrible: A group of white men, some led by William “King” Hale, exploited and effectively exterminated at least 20 (and likely many more) members of the oil-rich Osage Nation in Oklahoma back in the 1920s. DiCaprio, in his sixth collaboration with Scorsese, was set to play the book’s riveting hero, FBI investigator Tom White, who solved many of the murders and put Hale in prison. Only problem was, after an early table read right before the pandemic, DiCaprio didn’t want to play White. He proposed that he should play Hale’s nephew, Ernest Burkhart, who executed many of the murders at his uncle’s behest.
A very different movie emerged,...
- 10/20/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Martin Scorsese delivers another late-period masterpiece with Killers of the Flower Moon, an American tragedy that proves once again that no filmmaker is better at examining crime, guilt and greed, and the ways they are intimately woven into America’s DNA.
Based on David Grann’s best-selling nonfiction book, the movie tells the story of the Osage tribe, whose members were made rich after being relocated to Oklahoma land atop vast oil reserves. As the film begins, Scorsese captures Osage members jetting around town in fancy clothes and sleek cars while their white neighbors hustle to get some cash by taking their picture, selling tires or begging for a loan.
Into town comes Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a WWI vet taking up with his uncle, William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro), a cattle rancher who’s positioned himself as a beloved benefactor to the Osage. But behind his charming facade,...
Based on David Grann’s best-selling nonfiction book, the movie tells the story of the Osage tribe, whose members were made rich after being relocated to Oklahoma land atop vast oil reserves. As the film begins, Scorsese captures Osage members jetting around town in fancy clothes and sleek cars while their white neighbors hustle to get some cash by taking their picture, selling tires or begging for a loan.
Into town comes Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a WWI vet taking up with his uncle, William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro), a cattle rancher who’s positioned himself as a beloved benefactor to the Osage. But behind his charming facade,...
- 10/20/2023
- by Chris Williams
- CinemaNerdz
Even now, 10 years after its release, Martin Scorsese’s “Wolf of Wall Street” still inspires strong debate among those viewers who understand Scorsese’s no-holds-barred film about how Wall Street corruption and capitalism run amok can be alluring and contemptible at the same time and those who thought the movie celebrated that which it sought to condemn.
But that’s par for the course for the filmmaker, who has spent his entire career pushing audiences outside their comfort zones and asking questions of viewers that don’t have easy answers.
“I think what Marty is tapping into here — why he’s soaking you in the world — is to tweak what is in all of us, probably. The allure of this kind of easy money and excess is probably somewhere in all of us, but, fortunately, most of us don’t respond to it,” Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s Oscar-winning editor, said...
But that’s par for the course for the filmmaker, who has spent his entire career pushing audiences outside their comfort zones and asking questions of viewers that don’t have easy answers.
“I think what Marty is tapping into here — why he’s soaking you in the world — is to tweak what is in all of us, probably. The allure of this kind of easy money and excess is probably somewhere in all of us, but, fortunately, most of us don’t respond to it,” Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s Oscar-winning editor, said...
- 10/19/2023
- by Christopher Rosen
- Gold Derby
David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" is one of the finest nonfiction books of the 21st century. His account of a vile criminal conspiracy wherein members of the Osage tribe, who'd been awarded highly lucrative headrights to the oil deposits discovered on their land, were murdered by white Oklahomans is as absorbing as it is infuriating. Grann does a masterful job of blending the story of the Osage with the procedural tale of the investigation by the United States' newly formed Bureau of Investigation (soon to be the FBI). It's never less than gripping, but, even with the conviction of William Hale, who orchestrated the murder of his nephew's Osage wife and many of her family members, you're left fuming at the abject evil of these predators.
Grann's story is primarily driven by Tom White, a former Texas Ranger...
Grann's story is primarily driven by Tom White, a former Texas Ranger...
- 5/23/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Famed director Martin Scorsese has many stories he wants to share, but feels like it may be too late, he said in a recent interview with Deadline.
“I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time,” Scorsese, 80, said while discussing his narrative process for his upcoming movie Killers of the Flower Moon. “The whole world has opened up to me, but it’s too late. It’s too late.”
Part of this reflection was sparked by ruminating on the moment filmmaker Akira Kurosawa received his honorary Oscar from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in 1990.
“I’m old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and there’s no more time,” Scorsese explained. “[Kurosawa] said, ‘I’m only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and it’s too late.’ He was 83. At the time,...
“I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time,” Scorsese, 80, said while discussing his narrative process for his upcoming movie Killers of the Flower Moon. “The whole world has opened up to me, but it’s too late. It’s too late.”
Part of this reflection was sparked by ruminating on the moment filmmaker Akira Kurosawa received his honorary Oscar from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in 1990.
“I’m old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and there’s no more time,” Scorsese explained. “[Kurosawa] said, ‘I’m only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and it’s too late.’ He was 83. At the time,...
- 5/16/2023
- by Cervanté Pope
- Consequence - Film News
Robert De Niro has yet again teamed up with Martin Scorsese to star in the iconic director’s adaptation of David Grann’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.
The true-crime thriller is set in the 1920s and the story focuses on the Osage Nation were the richest people per capita in the world after oil was discovered under their land. And then they were murdered, one by one. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case and unravelled a chilling conspiracy and one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.
Scorsese has reportedly said that De Niro will be playing murderer Bill Hale.
Also in news – Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy to star in biopic ‘Louis Wain’
David Grann’s New York Bestselling novel will be adapted for the big screen by Eli Roth. Scorsese will also be producing the project alongside Imperative Entertainment’s Dan Friedkin,...
The true-crime thriller is set in the 1920s and the story focuses on the Osage Nation were the richest people per capita in the world after oil was discovered under their land. And then they were murdered, one by one. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case and unravelled a chilling conspiracy and one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.
Scorsese has reportedly said that De Niro will be playing murderer Bill Hale.
Also in news – Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy to star in biopic ‘Louis Wain’
David Grann’s New York Bestselling novel will be adapted for the big screen by Eli Roth. Scorsese will also be producing the project alongside Imperative Entertainment’s Dan Friedkin,...
- 7/29/2019
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
This week sees a couple of golden oldies trotted out alongside the customary summertime family fun, docs on science both good and bad, and another lesson from the Tony Scott school of flash-bang filmmaking.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 9:09 minutes, 12.6 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]
"Betty Blue: The Director's Cut"
Having inspired everything from ardent film student party chatter to the pure cinematic showmanship of Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1986 Oscar-nominated romantic drama has a legacy that reaches far and wide. This new print of Beineix's definitive 1991 cut of his oh so artsy tale of an aspiring writer Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), his wild, volatile muse Betty (Béatrice Dalle) and her gradual descent into self-destruction contains more than an hour of additional footage that stretches out Betty's madness and embellishes it with such antics as Zorg's cross-dressing crime spree. In French with subtitles.
Opens in New York.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 9:09 minutes, 12.6 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]
"Betty Blue: The Director's Cut"
Having inspired everything from ardent film student party chatter to the pure cinematic showmanship of Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1986 Oscar-nominated romantic drama has a legacy that reaches far and wide. This new print of Beineix's definitive 1991 cut of his oh so artsy tale of an aspiring writer Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), his wild, volatile muse Betty (Béatrice Dalle) and her gradual descent into self-destruction contains more than an hour of additional footage that stretches out Betty's madness and embellishes it with such antics as Zorg's cross-dressing crime spree. In French with subtitles.
Opens in New York.
- 6/8/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
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