Martin Scorsese will have to swap in a few “weigh anchor”s in between “action” and “cut” during production of his next feature film. The 79-year-old director has firmly attached himself to the hull of Apple Original Films, who have secured for him the rights to the forthcoming non-fiction book The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
The new movie will be a re-teaming of Scorsese and Grann, who authored Killers of the Flower Moon, which is currently in post-production and eyeing a Cannes 2023 debut. What’s more, Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars in Flower Moon, will be back in the lead for The Wager. The actor-director team have worked together numerous times over the last 20 years, beginning with Gangs of New York, then on The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, and, most recently, The Wolf of Wall Street.
The HMS Wager was a Royal Navy ship that was wrecked off the coast of Latin America in 1741. The story involves tales of survival in a brutal Patagonian winter, chasing Spanish treasure, mutiny, and, no doubt, a lot of men batting around terms like “gunwale,” “leeward,” “fo’c’sle,” and “mizzenmast.” Chances are we won’t hear the Rolling Stones in this one, but you never know.
Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Apple’s current project, Killers of the Flower Moon, also based on a true story, concerns a group of murders within the Osage Nation in the 1920s when oil was discovered on the land. It co-stars Robert DeNiro, Jesse Plemons, Lily Gladstone, and Tantoo Cardinal. Musicians Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson are also listed in the cast. Robbie Robertson, a frequent Scorsese collaborator (and ex-roommate!) is composing the score. Robertson’s mother was indigenous, and raised on a First Nations reserve, which has informed much of Robertson’s work over the years. The film was shot on location in Oklahoma.
Martin Scorsese has done just about everything with a camera, but he hasn’t done an Age of Sail picture. Indeed, other than the ending of Cape Fear, he’s tended to stick to dry land—even if Manhattan is an island. We’re bringing life preservers to this one.
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