With Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese is set to bring his first feature film since The Irishman (2019). The movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro is set to shed light on the Osage Native American tribe that saw many of its members murdered during the 1920s after oil was found on their land.
Considering Scorsese’s comments concerning superhero movies not matching his taste and temperament, there will be a lot of pressure on his Western crime drama, which is set to be released on October 20, to do well in the era of Marvel Studios dominance, and underline that there’s still an audience yearning for more traditional cinematic experience.
Having said that, irrespective of how his movie performs at the box office, one cannot deny he’s one of the very few true genius filmmakers in Hollywood, who has never shied away from going against the tide to present his views, through interviews or movies. One such fight occurred in the 1980s.
How All of Hollywood Reacted Toward Martin Scorsese’s Movie Starring Robert de Niro in 1982
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding ceaselessly, adding new timelines and characters to its catalog every day. At the same time, the field for a variety of other types of movies is narrowing down, with only a very few managing to give a good fight to Marvel or DC Studios-backed movies at the box office. As such, not many big-time studios show the same level of enthusiasm to back projects bereft of extraterrestrial powers and colorful suits.
During the Directors Roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, Todd Phillips, the director of Joker, admitted his team was struggling to get the Joaquin Phoenix starrer made. As the discussions stretched, Martin Scorsese was asked to talk about Joker, which he was expected to direct and then didn’t. The 80-year-old explained:
“Personal reasons, scheduling. And quite honestly, Taxi Driver and King of Comedy and Last Temptation of Christ. Those were my fights. We went and did King of Comedy and we were attacked for that and the film was considered the flop of the year at Entertainment Tonight. On New Year’s Eve, I was putting on my tie and I look over in this TV and they said, ‘Now the flop of the year’ and a curtain opened and it was King of Comedy. [But by then] the whole of Hollywood had turned against that kind of filmmaking.”
The King of Comedy, the movie about a passionate yet unsuccessful comic Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) who’s obsessed with the idea of being in the spotlight, wasn’t accepted at all during the time, making only around $2 million against the budget of $19 million. About a month after its release, Universal pulled it from cinemas [via Esquire].
Robert de Niro Went to Extreme Lengths for Martin Scorsese’s Dark Comedy
As mentioned earlier, Scorsese has never hidden from throwing punches against the dominant trend. His ode to the culture of wannabe and delusion for the limelight and consequently the obsession for the stars didn’t resonate with the audience and critics of that era, but over time, the film gained a cult following and is now viewed more kindly.
This also meant that the film’s lead, De Niro also started to get flowers for his brilliant performance, which included his character stalking a celebrity and kidnapping him. To portray Rupert he went to extreme lengths.
De Niro went so deep into the method acting technique that he came up with an idea of role reversal that included him stalking autograph hunters. According to Scorsese (via Filmmaker), he even met one of his stalkers to talk, who wanted to take him to dinner.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Esquire, Filmmaker
