While the drama behind the scenes regarding the budget of Martin Scorsese’s upcoming period crime thriller, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is well-documented, there haven’t been many details about what caused the initial friction between Paramount and the filmmaker. Well, until now.
Thanks to a new report from THR, we now have a better idea of what caused Paramount’s change of heart, from being the sole financier and studio behind Scorsese’s latest to becoming a partial participant in a blockbuster film seemingly now controlled by Apple. Apparently, it all came down to a change in the script which altered the role that Leonardo DiCaprio plays in the upcoming film about the 1920s serial murders that resulted in the creation of the FBI.
The report claims that Paramount was all-in on the idea of financing “Killers of the Flower Moon,” even when the budget was hovering around $150 million to $180 million. During this phase of development, DiCaprio was scheduled to play the role of the hero of the film, who worked for the just-formed FBI. However, when Scorsese and DiCaprio took another look at the script and made revisions, turning the actor’s role from good guy to the nephew of Robert De Niro’s villain character, Paramount began to worry. THR says Paramount felt that the film turned from a more marketable crime thriller to a moody, smaller-scale film that still required the blockbuster budget.
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And it’s that situation that created the need for additional financing from a third party. We now know that Apple swooped in, offering to cover the bulk of the costs (figures not entirely known) and taking on the creative control of the film. The new studio also offered Paramount the worldwide rights to distribute the film in theaters, while Apple now has the rights to stream the project, giving Scorsese exactly what he wants, and something that Netflix was never able to fully offer—a traditional theatrical run.
Of course, the film is still far from production and it’s unclear if there will be more script revisions in the future, but if this report is to be believed, it appears that “Killers of the Flower Moon” is still very much a work in progress.