Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio Have Two Murder Thrillers in Development
Zack Sharf
After the release of his 28-year-old passion project “Silence,” Martin Scorsese is getting multiple bands back together.
The filmmaker is set to begin production on his gangster movie return “The Irishman” next month, which will reunite him with “Goodfellas” duo Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. But Scorsese isn’t stopping there, as he’s got two different Leonardo DiCaprio vehicles in development for after. Scorsese and DiCaprio haven’t worked with each other since “The Wolf of Wall Street” four years ago.
The first project is an adaptation of Erik Larson’s book “The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.” DiCaprio purchased the film rights to the book in 2010 and Scorsese has gone on record praising the script.
“Right now, there is a script being worked on,” Scorsese told the Toronto Sun about “The Devil in the White City” last December. “One of the things that I had to stop for the past six months [to complete ‘Silence’] 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.”
Set in 1893, “The Devil in the White City” tells the story of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect behind the World’s Fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who lured up to 200 victims to their deaths in his “Murder Castle.” There’s no word on who DiCaprio will play, but it appears now that “White City” may be taking a backseat to another project DiCaprio and Scorsese are developing.
According to Variety, Scorsese is readying an adaptation of the true-crime thriller “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” for hist next movie after “The Irishman.” Scorsese’s longtime production designer Dante Ferretti reveled Scorsese hopes to start shooting the movie in the spring of next year. “Flower Moon” is based on the bestselling book by “The Lost City of Z” author David Grann and has a screenplay written by Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump”).
Scorsese and DiCaprio have reportedly been eyeing the project for months and are working with Imperative Entertainment to get the ball rolling on production. It would appear that either the “The Devil in the White City” script is unfinished or logistical reasons behind Scorsese’s shooting schedule is why “Flower Moon” is taking precedence over “White City.” The latter looks to be on the shelf for now, at least as far as Scorsese and DiCaprio’s involvement are concerned.
“Flower Moon” does not have a confirmed start date, though Ferretti told Variety that Scorsese plans to start the movie “immediately” after “The Irishman” wraps. The gangster film is expected to have a lengthy production from August to December. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is set in the 1920s around the FBI’s investigation into a string of murders on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma.
Fans of Scorsese and DiCaprio will have to sit tight until an official start date for either project is announced, but with two murder thrillers in development, it seems likely we will be getting at least one reunion between the Oscar-winning filmmaker and actor after “The Irishman.”
The two have worked with each other on five movies, starting with “Gangs of New York” in 2002. Click here for more information on “The Devil in the White City,” and head here for more details on “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
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