Scorsese Looks for Partner to Bail Out New Film
After the budget of his new project ballooned to $200+ million, Scorsese has been left searching for a partner to help pay for it.
Stop me if this sounds familiar. Martin Scorsese's new film is a period epic that is driven by stars like Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. While it was originally being funded by Paramount, the costs have gotten so high that they're looking for a streaming partner to help lighten the load.
No, we're not talking about The Irishman, we're talking about Killers of the Flower Moon.
Based on the book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the story centers on members of an Oklahoman Native American tribe in the 1920s whose murders sparked a major federal investigation.
While this sounds like an incredibly fun and intense project, the cost of the movie has supposedly ballooned to over $200 million, leaving Paramount and Scorsese needing to court outside partners.
That certainly paid off for The Irishman, which saw Academy Award nominations and a boost for Netflix.
But will Netflix come to save the day again?
The Wall Street Journal reports that Scorsese’s representatives have been holding talks with Apple Inc., Netflix Inc., and other streaming studios to seek a new partner for this venture to help defer the costs.
With Hollywood already struggling to make money during COVID-19, we hope this film stays afloat and does not get cut altogether. But it seems like the only way it happens is if one of these big names comes aboard.
Only time will tell if studios prioritize big titles like this to make a comeback when the disaster clears or if they spread their hundreds of millions across smaller, more genre-driven projects to see if one of those hits.
This is certainly a hard time for Tinseltown.
