Everything We Know About Killers Of The Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese’s next project is Killers of the Flower Moon, a Western crime drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and here’s everything you need to know about it. Throughout his career as a filmmaker, Martin Scorsese has explored a variety of genres – from musical drama with New York, New York, to biographical sports drama with Raging Bull and even dark comedy with After Hours – but he’s best known for his movies exploring the gangster and crime genre. Movies like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed have earned him a place among the most respected filmmakers and one who has mastery in telling crime stories, a genre he doesn’t seem to be abandoning anytime soon.

After doing something different with the fantasy movie Hugo, Scorsese returned to the crime genre with a touch of black comedy with The Wolf of Wall Street and took a break from the genre again with the historical drama Silence. Following the release of The Irishman, which reunited him with some of his frequent collaborators (Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel), Scorsese is working on another crime movie now with a touch of western in Killers of the Flower Moon, which also marks his reunion with another of his frequent collaborators: Leonardo DiCaprio.

DiCaprio and Scorsese joined forces for the first time in 2002 in Gangs of New York, and have worked together various times ever since, most notably in The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street. Killers of the Flower Moon will also bring back the Scorsese-De Niro duo in a story that fits the director’s style quite well – and here’s everything you need to know about it.

Killers of the Flower Moon Release Date

A movie adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon has been in development for years but has come across a couple of obstacles in the process. First, the production of The Irishman delayed the project, and in April 2020, filming was postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, Paramount Pictures was set to distribute the movie, but the budget was too high, so the studio was open to a deal with an additional partner. Apple TV+ came into the mix as co-financier and co-distributor, and so Killers of the Flower Moon is expected to be released on that platform. As for a release date, the movie began filming in April 2021 and is expected to last seven months, so Killers of the Flower Moon will most likely see the light in early 2022.

Killers of the Flower Moon Cast

Killers of the Flower Moon went through some minor cast changes during pre-production. The character of Tom White, the FBI agent who leads the investigation, was written for Leonardo DiCaprio, but he asked to have his role changed to that of Ernest Burkhart. Jesse Plemons was then cast as Tom White and DiCaprio as Ernest, and they are joined by Robert De Niro as William Hale, Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burkhart, Tantoo Cardinal as Lizzie Q, Jason Isbell as Bill Smith, Sturgill Simpson as Henry Grammer, and Tatanka Means as John Wren, among many others.

Killers of the Flower Moon Story Details

The movie is based on the nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. In the book, Grann investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1920s after oil deposits were discovered in their land. As the Osage people prepared to receive the wealth to which they were legally entitled from sales of the oil deposits, the administrators of the land had other ideas. These people had a history of bad relations with the Osage people, and decided they could simplify their profit mongering of the oil profits by eliminating those they considered operated as the “middle man” – and those were the Osage people. William Hale was one of the masterminds behind the plan to murder the Osage people, and his nephew, Ernest Burkhart, was a key player.

About The Author

Adrienne Tyler
(3273 Articles Published)

See also  Minecraft Player's Chemistry Lab Uses ZERO Mods & Still Looks Amazing

Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

More From Adrienne Tyler