Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Dwayne Johnson’s Hawaii-set crime movie only hit the market less than 48 hours ago, but an aggressive bidding war is currently underway.
It does look as though Scorsese’s ‘Irishman’ backer Netflix has the edge in acquiring Scorsese’s project, some of the other higher bidders include Amazon and Apple, with Warner Bros. and at least one other traditional studio in there somewhere.
In bidding wars, Scorsese is usually prone to go with the highest bidder, and with $200M above-the-line expenses on this movie, Netflix is the most willing to outbid the competition. In case you’re wondering, Netflix movie boss Dan Lin isn’t offering a theatrical rollout, but it doesn’t sound like Scorsese cares that much. He just wants the most money out of the deal, and the promise that he’ll be getting the budget needed to make this movie.
Regardless, whenever it gets shot, this will probably be an awards player, and Scorsese will get the token limited 1-2 week Netflix theatrical rollout for Oscar-qualifying purposes. That’s the exact same treatment “The Irishman” received in 2019, in addition to a splashy New York Film Festival world premiere.
Set in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Scorsese’s Hawaii-set film is said to follow an aspiring mob boss (Johnson) who fights rival crime factions for control of the underworld of the Hawaiian islands. Scorsese has hired Vanity Fair journalist, and doc filmmaker, Nick Bilton to write the screenplay.
The script hasn’t been written yet, and DiCaprio is going to be busy this summer shooting his Damien Chazelle movie, so we’re looking, at the earliest, a production start in 2026. Scorsese can still, technically, shoot one of his other percolating projects this year, but definitely not “Devil in the White City” or “Sinatra” which is are both supposed to star DiCaprio.
So, with the knowledge of DiCaprio’s busy schedule, which will include Chazelle’s film and promotion of Paul Thomas Anderson’s fall-tipped “One Battle After Another,” what’s Scorsese next film going to be? I’m still banking on the smaller-scalled Marillyne Robinson adaptation “Home” to shoot sometime this year.