Well, that was fast. We recently reported that director Martin Scorsese is attached to direct the stockbroker drama The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio set to star, with filming possibly starting as soon as June. It appears the presumption that Wall Street would be Scorsese’s next film was a bit premature. Now it looks like the director’s next project after he wraps his family film Hugo Cabret is the long-gestating drama Silence, about two 17th century Jesuit priests facing persecution in Japan.Daniel Day-Lewis, Benicio Del Toro and Gael Garcia Bernal have all previously been set to star in the film, but The Playlist reports that their status with the project ambiguous at the moment. They did, however, confirm that this will be Scorsese’s next film. This is one of those projects that Scorsese has been flirting with for a while, and I’m fairly certain the entire film community would love to see it finally get made, especially with that cast. Hit the jump for more, including a synopsis of the novel.
The film is based on the book of the same name by Shusaku Endo. Jay Cocks (The Age of Innocence) wrote the script for the film. Although the cast is pretty perfect as is, if they should have prior commitments and are unavailable to star in the film, Scorsese should have no problem finding a suitable replacement.Here’s the synopsis of Silence by Shusaku Endo via Wikipedia:
Young Portuguese Jesuit, Sebastião Rodrigues (based on the historical figure Giuseppe Chiara) is sent to Japan to succor the local Church and investigate reports that his mentor, Fr. Cristóvão Ferreira, has committed apostasy. (Ferreira is a historical figure, who apostatized after torture and later became a Zen Buddhist monk and wrote a treatise against Christianity.)