Geez, we’re well over a year away from even thinking about the 2015 Oscar campaign and already the competition is looking fierce. David O. Russell‘s "Joy" and Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s "The Revenant" are already dated, with plenty more contenders to come, including a picture from a directorial legend.
Martin Scorsese‘s forever brewing dream project "Silence" is finally going to shoot this year, and Paramount are in talks to pick up the U.S. rights for the drama, with plans for a November 2015 release date. Based on the book by Shusaku Endo, the story will follow two 17th-century Jesuit priests who face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and to spread the gospel of Christianity. Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe and Adam Driver are all lined up for roles, and production was at one time supposed to begin this month, though it’s not clear if that’s still the plan. Either way, it looks like everyone is confident this will finally get made, and we can’t wait to see Scorsese dip into this after spending so many years trying to get it mounted.
Meanwhile, he’s got another project coming, "The New York Review of Books: A 50 Year Argument." The film screened as a work-in-progress at the Berlin Film Festival in February, but it’s not slated to open in New York City on September 27th before hitting HBO shortly thereafter. [Deadline/Providence Journal]