Budget on Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman reportedly grown to $140 million

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The vast majority of dramatic biopics don’t cost in the neighborhood of $150 million dollars to make, but Martin Scorsese is no ordinary director and will get the money he needs to complete his vision. And yes, even if that means getting the budget of a superhero movie. According to a new report, the budget for Scorsese’s newest movie, THE IRISHMAN, has ballooned past its already ballooned amount.

Deadline has heard from numerous sources that as the movie nears the end of principal photography the budget has increased immensely from its original $125 million tag to $140 million. Much of this money will go towards the movie’s visual effects, which will be used to de-age star Robert De Niro as real-life gangster Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. De Niro will play the actor through all stages of his life, including as a much younger man, as the character looks back on his time as a career in crime in his old age.

The movie had a hard time getting made given that Scorsese wanted to make the movie with a budget over $100 million. Original studio, Paramount, didn’t want to risk the money, and in the end, Netflix scooped up the rights and gave Scorsese all the resources he needed (including a reported $10-15 million payday). The budget is currently sitting at around $140 million as Scorsese continues to work with Industrial Light and Magic, and Deadline reports the budget could even go up from there.

If the budget keeps going up the movie will go past the budget of HUGO, which cost around $150 million to make (and only making $185 million worldwide). The director’s most recent movie – SILENCE – cost north of $50 million but only made $23 million worldwide, which is probably another reason Paramount felt too skittish to give him all that money.

A ton of money is being sunk into the movie, but if we know anything about Netflix, they don’t seem to care about price. Even though they don’t make money off movies like other studios do, they have no problem spending big money on movie’s like BRIGHT (close to $100 million). This is all in the name of establishing themselves as a major studio and are probably hoping for some Oscar attention with IRSIHMAN. Scorsese almost never lets us down, so surely, he knows what he’s doing. Fingers crossed De Niro doesn’t look like Tarkin in ROGUE ONE.

THE IRISHMAN is set for a 2019 release.