Martin Scorsese attaching his name to anything is already a big deal, but a mob movie with a star-studded cast? Kinda makes you wonder why he’s not doing it himself. But it’s still very good new for director Julian Schnabel, whose film In the Hand of Dante has Scorsese aboard as an exec-producer, and now a cast that any director would envy.
According to Deadline, In the Hand of Dante will star Gerard Butler, Jason Momoa, and Oscar Isaac.
Damn.
A SAG-AFTRA interim agreement (Are they giving these away like free candy or what?) has allowed production to begin in Italy during the strike. So what’s the movie about? A group of New York mobsters get their hands on an original manuscript of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which is basically priceless.
The film is an adaptation of Nick Tosches’ book, and here’s the synopsis:
Deep inside the Vatican library, a priest discovers the rarest and most valuable art object ever found: the manuscript of “The Divine Comedy,” written in Dante’s own hand. Via Sicily, the manuscript makes its way from the priest to a mob boss in New York City, where a writer named Nick Tosches is called to authenticate the prize. For this writer, the temptation is too great: he steals the manuscript in a last-chance bid to have it all. Some will find it offensive; others will declare it transcendent; it is certain to be the most ragingly debated novel of the decade.
Schnabel is a painter and filmmaker who has frequently made movies set in the art world, including Basquiat and 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate.
