The potential next collaboration between Martin Scorsese and his longtime muse and lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio has just been revealed. Also, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is part of it for some wild reason.
According to an exclusive report from Deadline, the pitch for Scorsese’s latest project following his Oscar-nominated film “Killers of the Flower Moon” has DiCaprio, Johnson, and Emily Blunt attached to star. (Johnson and Blunt, unlike DiCaprio, will be working with the venerated director for the very first time.) Deadline also provided the pitch’s “thumbnail description,” which reads, “Imagine Robert De Niro’s Jimmy the Gent character from ‘Goodfellas,’ but as a ruthless Hawaiian crime boss, based on a real figure, who battled encroaching rivals for control of organized crime in Hawaii.” The outlet also notes that the film will be written by Nick Bilton (a Vanity Fair editor who directed the 2021 documentary “Fake Famous”) and says that the “film focuses on a turbulent time on the island paradise when an aspiring mob boss battled rival crime factions to wrest control of the underworld of the Hawaiian islands.”
Blunt is well known for prestige projects — including the 2023 critical and commercial blockbuster “Oppenheimer” — and DiCaprio is obviously a mainstay for Scorsese, but it’s definitely interesting to see someone like Johnson involved in a project with the director behind “The Departed” and “Gangs of New York.” Still, Johnson has been moving away from popcorn fare as of late; in fact, we recently got a first look at his A24 project “The Smashing Machine,” which also features Blunt and is directed by indie film staple Benny Safdie. (Also notable: this Scorsese project will mark another collaboration between Blunt and Johnson, who previously appeared in “Jungle Cruise” together.) Incredibly, this report additionally notes that Johnson and Blunt brought the concept for this currently untitled film to Scorsese and DiCaprio, and the group of Hollywood A-listers worked together to get Bilton on board.
Martin Scorsese is exploring both familiar and new territory with this potential new project
In 2023, Martin Scorsese explored familiar ground and also stretched his creative vision further than he has in some time with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an American epic based on a book by David Grann that was penned by Scorsese himself and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eric Roth. While the overall concept of the movie fits into Scorsese’s oeuvre (in that it’s a sweeping yet personal crime drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro), it also gave him the opportunity to represent the Indigenous population of the United States and their history, particularly in the ways that they were brutalized and targeted by white Americans.
Sure, an old Italian-American guy directing a movie about Native Americans sounds rough on the surface, but thanks to Scorsese’s vision and his work alongside the film’s female lead Lily Gladstone (who was raised on the Blackfeet Reservation and is of Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage), the film centers the Native American experience around Gladstone’s character Mollie Kyle, a real-life Osage woman. All in all, it marked a major perspective shift for Scorsese, and a welcome one, giving a voice to a people that were murdered and abused to benefit wealthy white Americans in Osage County in Oklahoma and telling an unfortunately true story of brutality and violence.
This is all to say that, in this currently untitled project, Scorsese will focus on a different American Indigenous population — specifically, the people of Hawaii. It’s also necessary to say here that Dwayne Johnson lived on the island of Oahu as a child, so his involvement in this project could be quite important. If you want to explore Scorsese’s most recent project so you can imagine what this next one will offer, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is available to stream on Apple TV+ now.
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