Martin Scorsese pretty much got a blank cheque from Netflix for THE IRISHMAN, and it seems the director is keen to stay in the streaming service business. Deadline has reported that Apple has teamed with Martin Scorsese and Paramount Pictures to bring Scorsese's adaptation of David Grann's best-selling crime thriller "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" to life.
Much like THE IRISHMAN, the budget for the KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON movie was getting somewhat large as it's estimated to cost somewhere between $180 to $200 million, which naturally got studios a little nervous, but nonetheless, a bidding war began with studios such as Universal Pictures and MGM, as well as streaming services such as Netflix and Apple, pursuing the project. It seems that Apple has come out on top, as KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON will be an Apple Original Film with Paramount distributing the film theatrically worldwide. This is the second large movie which Apple has snagged, as they also recently acquired Tom Hanks' World War II movie GREYHOUND. The true-life mystery tale of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON deals with the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s, who became quite wealthy after oil was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off and the ensuing spiral of conspiracy, greed and murder got so bad that the FBI had to step in. Martin Scorsese will direct from a script by Eric Roth, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro starring in the film.
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Given the current state of the world right now, it's hard to say exactly when production on KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON will kick off, but Martin Scorsese teased earlier this year to Premiere that the film will likely be styled in the Western genre. "We think it’s a Western," Scorsese said. "It happened in 1921-1922 in Oklahoma. There are certainly cowboys, but they have cars and also horses. The film is mainly about the Osage, an Indian tribe that was given horrible territory, which they loved because they said to themselves that Whites would never be interested in it. Then we discovered oil there and, for about ten years, the Osage became the richest people in the world, per capita. Then, as with the Yukon and the Colorado mining regions, the vultures disembark, the White man, the European arrives, and all was lost. There, the underworld had such control over everything that you were more likely to go to jail for killing a dog than for killing an Indian."