On the heels of the success ofThe Irishmanand its 10 Academy Awards nods at the 2020 Oscars, directorMartin Scorseseis looking ahead to his next movie:Killers of the Flower Moon. After years of trying to get this project off the ground, Scorsese is finally able to talk confidently about the project ahead of itsMarch 2020 filming start date, including teasing the genre of the movie and the time period at the heart of the story.
While speaking with French outletPremiere, Scorsese opened up about what genreKillers of the Flower Moonwill probably be styled as — and it’s a major first for the beloved director. According to Scorsese,
“We think it’s a Western. It happened in 1921-1922 in Oklahoma. There are certainly cowboys, but they have cars and also horses. The film is mainly about the Osage, an Indian tribe that was given horrible territory, which they loved because they said to themselves that Whites would never be interested in it. Then we discovered oil there and, for about ten years, the Osage became the richest people in the world, per capita. Then, as with the Yukon and the Colorado mining regions, the vultures disembark, the White man, the European arrives, and all was lost. There, the underworld had such control over everything that you were more likely to go to jail for killing a dog than for killing an Indian.
Longtime Scorsese collaboratorsLeonardo DiCaprioandRobert De Nirowill be joining the director in re-telling the events of this historical drama which is set in Oklahoma in the 1920s. It sounds like all three will have quite a time getting it right; Scorsese’s continued comments to Premiere indicate he’s thinking about the bigger and broader implications of the murders and their place in history.
“It’s so interesting to think about the mentality that leads us to this. The history of civilization goes back to Mesopotamia. The Hittites are invaded by another people, they disappear, and later it is said that they have been assimilated or, rather, absorbed. It is fascinating to see this mentality which is reproduced in other cultures, through two world wars. And which is therefore timeless, I think. This is the film that we are going to try to make.”
Based on the nonfiction book of the same name from authorDavid Grann,Killers of the Flower Moonis based on the actual murders of members of the Osage Nation after vast reserves of oil were discovered on their reservation. The string of murders eventually grabbed the attention ofJ. Edgar Hooverand the nascent FBI. After floating around for a while, production onKillers of the Flower Moonbegan to take shape whenParamount Pictures scoopedthe feature up back in June 2019.
Killers of the Flower Moonis set for release in 2021. In the meantime, check out our round-up of themost anticipated movies of 2020.
