Jodie Foster Thinks Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Should Have Been An 8-Hour Streaming Series To Explore Events In Greater Depth

Actress Jodie Foster got a huge breakout role in Martin Scorsese‘s landmark film “Taxi Driver,” and has since gone on to become a filmmaker/producer in her own right over the years. While reciving an award at the Marrakech Film Festival over the weekend, she was speaking on-stage (via Deadline) and shared the impression that “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which covered the infamous string of murders of wealthy members of the Osage Nation from the David Grann novel, would have worked better as an eight-hour streaming series at Apple (Paramount Pictures distributing the movie in theaters), rather than a shorter theatrical release as a feature film, as it could have allowed them to tell a more in-depth story of those events and the Osage people.

“Everybody was sort of excited that the native story was going to be told, and what they found was like, ‘Wow, all the native women are dead,'” Foster said on Sunday at the Marrakech Film Festival. “They said, ‘Well, it’s a feature, we didn’t have time,’ but there was time. There was an eight-hour limited series that was not made, that could have been made, where, if you really needed to explore all the male toxic masculinity, you could have done that, but you could have had episode two actually centered on the native story.”

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We can’t exactly argue with her perspective (Foster coming off a fantastic run on HBO‘s “True Dectective: Night Country“) because the story of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is larger than life and maybe could have been further fleshed out in eight hours; however, a streaming series likely wouldn’t have allowed Scorsese the budgetary level needed to bring that world to life alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, who may been seen as too expensive for a TV budget. Then again, taking a page from Scorsese’s own “Boardwalk Empire” series at HBO, a limited series may have been a more digestible iteration for an audience, and allowing the director to make a longer, more in-depth telling of this important true-crime story from American history.

Still, the Scorsese film is certainly an achievement on multiple fronts, including allowing the creative involvement of native creatives and groups to add a level of authenticity to such a large-scale Hollywood production (something we don’t often see, as native stories are rarely explored by big studios, to begin with). We should note that the movie’s vision and narrative morphed over time during production delays as Lily Gladstone‘s Mollie Burkhart and her grim relationship with her murderous husband, played by Leonardo DiCaprio was given a larger spotlight than was originally planned, leading to her impressive Best Actress Oscar nomination for the heartfelt and charming performance as Mollie.

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You can watch and listen to Foster’s thoughts on the “Killers of the Flower Moon” via Deadline, below.

Jodie Foster suggests Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ should have been an 8-hour streaming series as she reflects on future of film @Marrakech_Fest pic.twitter.com/DHcHFrMjVP

— Deadline (@DEADLINE) November 30, 2025