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Apple’s grand plans for director Martin Scorsese’s hotly anticipated new feature, Killers of the Flower Moon, are beginning to take shape. The Cannes Film Festival announced on Friday that the epic Western has been officially selected to premiere at this year’s edition. It’s still unclear if the film will play in or out of competition, but we’ll know soon enough, when the festival announces this year’s lineup in April.
The 76th Cannes Film Festival is due to take place from May 16 to May 27, with two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund serving as the president of the jury for the competition section. Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are also expected to premiere at Cannes this year. Scorsese, who remains perhaps the most admired living American director, himself has served as jury president at Cannes. He also won the prestigious Palme d’Or for his seminal 1976 film Taxi Driver. Killers of the Flower Moon would mark his first official selection at the festival since 1986’s After Hours.
Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, Tantoo Cardinal and more are expected to join Scorsese for the red carpet premiere at the Grand Théâtre Lumière on May 20. Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann’s non-fiction book about the serial murders of Osage Nation members during the 1920s, was famously set to star DiCaprio in the lead. But a subsequent switcheroo promoted Plemons to the main role, while DiCaprio pivoted to a supporting character.
Nevertheless, Killers of the Flower Moon is notable for several reasons, one of which is the long-awaited on-screen union of Scorsese’s two greatest leading men: DiCaprio and De Niro (barring that casino ad film, of course). While De Niro has collaborated with Scorsese on iconic films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino, Goodfellas and Cape Fear, DiCaprio and Scorsese have worked together on films such as The Departed, The Aviator, Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Scorsese is Playing a High-Stakes Game
The legendary filmmaker has been working almost exclusively in rarified space, consistently securing budgets that are unheard of for films like this, although he has admitted that getting funding for his projects has become increasingly difficult in recent years. This is the primary reason behind his move to streaming. Killers of the Flower Moon is his second film for a streamer, after 2019’s epic gangster drama The Irishman, on which Scorsese partnered with Netflix and set them back by around $250 million. Killers of the Flower Moon didn't come cheap either; the film reportedly cost $200 million to produce. It’s a key piece in Apple’s grand foray into theatrical distribution, on which it plans to spend $1 billion. The streamer made history a couple of years ago, when CODA became the first streaming film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Apple is clearly hoping for similar results with this film.
Before bowing on Apple TV+ at an unspecified date, Killers of the Flower Moon will first be released exclusively in theaters, in partnership with Paramount Pictures, limited on October 6, followed by a wide release a couple of weeks later, on October 20, in the United States. The French release is set for October 18, 2023. The film will have to adhere to France’s strict distribution laws, which state that films cannot be shown on streaming platforms for at least 15 months after their theatrical release. You can watch our interview with cast member (and recent Oscar winner) Brendan Fraser here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.