(Kurosawa’s High and Low, 1963)
A few AD readers were wondering how Scorsese’s Sinatra will impact the director’s long-awaited Silence. I don’t have an IMDbPro pass, but “Antonia_I” does, and she helpfully reveals the following projects in development on the IMDb message boards. As the discussion there points out, Sinatra doesn’t even have a script yet, while Silence is the only Scorsese narrative film currently listed in the pre-production stage. The bad news is Daniel Day-Lewis is apparently no longer part of the cast.
10 titles In Development before year 2012
- 2011 – Cache – Director (Optioned property)
- 2011 – I Heard You Paint Houses – Director, Producer (Optioned property)
- 2011 – The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt– Director/Producer (Script)
- 2010 – High and Low – Executive Producer (Optioned property)
- 2010 – untitled Elia Kazan documentary – Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
- 2010 – The Wolf of Wall Street – Director (rumoured), Producer (Optioned property)
- 2010 – untitled Frank Sinatra Project – Director/Producer (Optioned property)
- 2009 – Chaos – Executive Producer (Status Unknown)
- 2009 – The Last Duel – Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
- 2009 – The Long Play – Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
Films In Production or in Post (3 titles)
- 2010 – Silence – Director, Writer (screenplay)
- 2010 – untitled George Harrison documentary – Director/Producer (Post-production)
- 2009 – Shutter Island – Director/Producer (Post-production)
I’m surprised to see so many titles in the queue ahead of Teddy Roosevelt, but glad it was easy to find out more about the intervening projects. Details after the cut:
“The Long Play” follows two friends through 40 years in the music business, from the early days of R&B to contemporary hip-hop.Jagged originated the project at Disney based on [Mick] Jagger’s idea. Scorsese sparked to it, and they brought in Rich Cohen, a Rolling Stones mag writer who did exhaustive research and wrote several drafts… Matthew Weiss also wrote drafts. William Monahan is set to rewrite the script, reteaming the dual Oscar winners from “The Departed.” (Variety)
“The Last Duel” is the true story of a the “duel to end all duels” in medieval France: a trial by combat pitting a knight against a squire accused of violating the knight’s beautiful young wife. The duel was the last sanctioned by the French government. Publisher Broadway Books describes it as a story centered around three characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. It’s billed as part human drama, part detective story. (IGN)
Harvey Keitel and Martin Scorsese are to work together on the film Chaos. Daphna Kastner who wrote the screenplay for the film is also directing. Keitel will be a producer with Scorsese executive producing, the two have previously worked together in films such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. Chaos is set in New York and follows the lives of two lovelorn people who paths always seem to cross. (Filmstalker)
In “Wolf of Wall Street” DiCaprio would play Belfort, a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including mob infiltration. “The Sopranos” scribe Terence Winter is on board to write. (Variety)
“High and Low” centres on a businessman who has mortgaged all he owns to raise the money for a crucial business deal. The executive is then told that his son has been kidnapped and prepares to hand over everything he has in return for the boy’s safe return. The businessman then has to decide if the boy’s life is worth sacrificing everything he owns.Scorsese commissioned the script from Mamet in 1999, [based on Kurosawa’s 1963 original] so this one has been a long time coming. (GuardianUK)
Steve Zaillian has been hired to pen the adaptation [of I Heard You Paint Houses] and Robert De Niro is signed on to play Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, a mob assassin who is believed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders, and claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Bandt befriended Sheeran shortly before his death in 2003. The film’s title refers to the clever mob slang for contract killings. As you can imagine, when someone is murdered, the blood splatters on walls and floors aka Painting the house. (/Film)
Even without Marty’s name attached, these movies would sound intriguing.¬† But I guess we have to face reality and accept the fact that Scorsese can’t direct 3 or 4 a year.¬† Which of these sounds most promising, and which would you rather see handed to other directors?