Leo + Scorcese = Killers of the Flower Moon = Erection.
COLLIDER – That Killers of the Flower Moon movie is now officially happening, as director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have firmed up the adaptation as their next project. The duo have been attached to an adaptation of author David Grann’s book for quite some time, with DiCaprio’s involvement dating back to 2016 when J.J. Abrams was circling the director’s chair. The true-crime thriller takes place in the 1920s and recounts how a string of murders of members of the Osage nation in Oklahoma over oil arose as one of the FBI’s first major homicide investigations.
Deadline reports that Scorsese and DiCaprio have officially attached themselves to the project as director and star, respectively, for Imperative Entertainment. Eric Roth, the screenwriter behind films like Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Bennjamin Button and co-writer on Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born, wrote the script. Scorsese and DiCaprio will both also produce the film.
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Let’s goooooooo.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a book from last year that was named one of the top 10 non-fiction books of 2017.
Here’s the basic story:
This dude? William Hale King. Real bad dude.
King was a “cattleman” who settled in Indian territory in the late 19th century and built “The Hale Ranch” on Osage land. He made a shitload of money raising cattle – then, in 1907, Oklahoma gained state independence and the reservation became part of Osage County. That’s where King became basically the mob boss of the area through bribery and extortion. He had his nephew’s wife, mother-in-law, her cousin, her sister, and her brother-in-law all murdered in 1921 to gain control of their oil rights. Then in the next few months, he had “at least 24″ people murdered who were going to testify against him. Like Gotti on steroids but for 20th century Indian reservations instead of the big city.
Killers of the Flower Moon is about one of the FBI’s first investigations – the murder of at LEAST 20 wealthy full-blood Osage Native Americans whose land was on top of oil. Everyone assumes it was King obviously. And they think that maybe HUNDREDS were murdered despite only being able to account for the 20.
Since King basically had the mafia “Omerta” thing going on around there, the FBI sent 4 undercover agents to the reservation, who spent years there getting to know people and gaining enough of their trust to get dirt on Hale. I won’t tell you how it ended up, you’ll have to read the book – or, let’s be serious, you’ll just wait for Leo and Scorcese to show you.
“When I read David Grann’s book, I immediately started seeing it—the people, the settings, the action—and I knew that I had to make it into a movie,” said Scorsese. “I’m so excited to be working with Eric Roth and reuniting with Leo DiCaprio to bring this truly unsettling American story to the screen.”
See you opening night.