Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio’s Killers of the Flower Moon Headed to Apple

It looks like one of the biggest film projects in Hollywood has finally found a home. After a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating, Deadline reports that Martin Scorsese‘s Killer of the Flower Moon has landed at Apple, with Paramount distributing the film theatrically worldwide. Scorsese’s project is based on the 2017 book by journalist David Grann, the full title of which is “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” The book investigates a series of murders of wealthy members of the Osage people in Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s after massive oil deposits were discovered beneath their land. The investigation into the crime helped establish the FBI and was considered a turning point for the country in shedding its frontier past. Grann is a phenomenal investigative journalist; his intrepid “The Lost City of Z” was adapted by James Gray in 2016.

Scorsese’s adaptation, from a script by Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), includes two of his favorite collaborators, DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The project was acquired by Paramount, and then ultimately became the subject of an intense bidding war between the major studios and streamers, including Netflix, who last produced Scorsese’s epic The Irishman. This new deal with Apple and Paramount gives Scorsese what amounts to a dream scenario—the film will get a wide theatrical release via Paramount before it streams on Apple, instantly becoming their most marquee film yet. Deadline reports that one of the key parameters for a deal was that Scorsese, De Niro, and DiCaprio, along with producers Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas, wanted Killers of the Flower Moon to be a “large scale Western.”

This will mark the first time that De Niro and DiCaprio have worked together since This Boy’s Life, in 1993. This is a huge, huge get for Apple, and a great thing for not only Scorsese fans, but all of us who want to see his work on a big screen.

Featured image: NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 19: Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio attend The Museum Of Modern Art Film Benefit Presented By CHANEL: A Tribute To Martin Scorsese on November 19, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art)