Director Martin Scorsese has been making movies since the 1960s, but the 74-year-old master filmmaker has seen his greatest career success in the last few years. The Departed, in 2006, finally won him his first Oscar. More recently, 2011’s Hugo won him critical praise despite middling box office, while 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street was an even bigger hit. The director’s new film, Silence, has also garnered universally positive critical reviews.

Scorsese’s next film is said to be The Irishman, a gangster epic that will reunite Scorsese with longtime muse Robert De Niro, while also directing Al Pacino for the first time ever; a report this week said the film will use Rogue One-style de-aging technology for De Niro and possibly other actors. But what about that other rumored Scorsese project, The Devil in the White City adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio? The director discussed the progress of that film this week.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun while promoting Silence, Scorsese gave an update on that film. The director stated that while he had to stop working on it while wrapping Silence, the project will be making progress in the new year:

"Right now, there is a script being worked on… One of the things that I had to stop for the past six months… was my meetings on that script. They want me to start again in January and see if we can find a way because it’s an extraordinary story.”

Martin Scorsese The Irishman

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America is a nonfiction book by Erik Larson, focusing on the story of famous serial killer H. H. Holmes who operated around the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. DiCaprio owns the rights to the book and has long wanted to adapt it along with Scorsese; Paramount won the distribution rights in 2015.

Devil in the White City certainly seems to be a story on the sort of grand scale that Scorsese and DiCaprio have brought to their previous collaborations, and the director has often thrived while helming period pieces. This film, should it come together, will be one of the most anticipated releases in whichever year it arrives.

Then again, if Scorsese is making one movie with De Niro, and another with DiCaprio, might he, at some point before he’s done, find a way to make a film with both?

There are no release dates yet for The Irishman or Devil in the White City.

Source: Toronto Sun