Director Martin Scorsese will officially reunite with star Leonardo DiCaprio for the upcoming drama, Killers of the Flower Moon. The pair is without question one of cinema's most iconic duos of the 21st century, collaborating five times since 2002. They tend to pick their projects well, seeing that four of those films went on to secure Best Picture nominations at the Oscars, with Shutter Island (a box office hit in its own right) the lone outlier. They last worked together on 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, which earned $392 million at the worldwide box office and received widespread critical praise.
Since that time, the two have gone off in separate directions. DiCaprio finally won his elusive Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Revenant and is now headlining Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In the meantime, Scorsese has been crossing passion projects off his to-do list, getting religious drama Silence out in theaters and is now currently completing post-production on gangster pic The Irishman. The two obviously enjoy working with each other, so cinephiles hoped they'd join forces again. Now, it's been confirmed they will.
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Deadline reports Scorsese will once again direct DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon, a film they've been circling since April of last year. Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) penned the script, and the plan is for it to begin production next summer. Hypothetically, this would put it on pace for a 2020 premiere.
For those not in the know, Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the non-fiction book by David Grann, which detailed the infamous Osage Nation murders. Their people were continuously murdered after oil was discovered on their land, and the FBI spearheaded a harrowing investigation into the atrocities. It's currently unknown what role DiCaprio is targeting, but he'll likely portray one of the FBI agents assigned to handle the case. Another possibility is William Hale, who was identified by Grann's book as the one behind the murders. DiCaprio typically plays the protagonists of his films, rarely transforming into a villain (Django Unchained is a rare exception). Whatever the case, DiCaprio will likely have an interesting part to explore, perhaps putting him in the Academy Award race again.
It'll be interesting to see who else Scorsese recruits for the cast. It was previously reported Robert De Niro, Scorsese's 20th century muse, was keen on joining, but this latest update makes no mention of him. Regardless, Killers of the Flower Moon will surely have a talented and star-studded ensemble, as is usually the case with Scorsese pictures. Approaching his 76th birthday, the director is showing no signs of slowing down and remains at the top of his game, so hopefully he's successful in bringing this "unsettling" true story to life.
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Source: Deadline