In the city where he shot “Casino” nearly 30 years ago, the legendary Martin Scorsese made a grand appearance at CinemaCon to provide theater owners with the very first look at his 27th film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which will be released by Paramount and Apple this fall.
“This is a picture that I designed to be projected on a big screen,” Scorsese said. “I want to thank the entire Osage Nation who welcomed us to Oklahoma and in 110-degree heat worked with us to bring this movie to life.”
The teaser shows Ernest Burkhart having an awkward conversation with his Osage wife Mollie (played by Leo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone) about her color. The couple lives on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma, which was believed to be the worst land possible until the Osage people discovered that they were sitting on oil reserves.
But as the tycoon William Hale (Robert De Niro) declares, “This wealth should belong to us. Their time is over.”
Thus begins a war over the Osage homeland as a sea of Hale’s greedy men arrive and are willing to murder anyone to get control of the oil. As Mollie swears to spill blood in return for all of the suffering inflicted on her and her people, Ernest is left caught in the middle as he gets a visit from Tom White (Jesse Plemons), a federal agent from the newly created FBI sent to investigate the murders. Not that this fazes William in any way
“You expect America is going to come and make this all go away?” William tells Ernest. “You know they don’t do that anymore.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” will be the first Scorsese movie to hit movie theaters in seven years. His last theatrical release, “Silence,” was a box-office bomb when it was released by Paramount in December 2016 but earned Scorsese critical acclaim for his examination of Catholic faith and how it can be challenged by human suffering.
In 2019, Scorsese turned to streaming with Netflix’s “The Irishman,” a three-hour epic that brought Joe Pesci out of retirement and earned 10 Oscar nominations. Now, “Killers of the Flower Moon” sees Scorsese sitting at the intersection of classic and modern Hollywood, as Apple Original Films is teaming up with Paramount to release the 206 minute film on the big screen on Oct. 6.
