We’re learning more about what caused Paramount to balk at ponying up $150M for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. A couple of days ago Apple came into co-finance, but the reason they were needed at all had to do with a crucial change made the movie’s script. That change affected Leonardo DiCaprio’s character drastically, making the studio a bit nervous.
THR says the original plan for Killers of the Flower Moon was to have DiCaprio play a member of the newly-formed FBI, investigating the murders of the wealthy Osage people over oil reserves. Paramount was cool with that and willing to pay the budget, which could’ve gone as high as $180M-$200M. However, when Scorsese and DiCaprio took another round at the script, and changed DiCaprio’s character to the nephew of Robert De Niro’s villain, Paramount no longer was for a movie they felt would be tough to market.
So that necessitated bringing in Apple, who will have exclusive rights to stream it on Apple TV+ after a theatrical run. It also caused a bit of a delay in production, which has left DiCaprio free to possibly do something else in-between. As of now, Killers of the Flower Moon is still a long way off.
