Earlier this year, it was reported that Martin Scorsese was cooking up a Hawaiian crime drama with Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson, and Emily Blunt. It was assumed that this would be his next big project. But fast-forward to last month, and the legendary director revealed he’s actually tackling an adaptation of Peter Cameron’s What Happens at Night first. So where does that leave the Hawaiian crime drama?
According to Blunt, it’s still in the works. “We’re developing it right now,” the actress told Deadline at the premiere of The Smashing Machine. “It’s a really astonishing story. It’s the last great American mob story, and I can’t believe it hasn’t been told yet. It’s a terribly exciting role for [Dwayne] to dig into. It’s being written. We’re working on it, and that’s the wonderful part, is building it.” Likely, the project wasn’t ready to go quite yet, which left Scorsese free to move on to What Happens at Night.
Nick Bilton is writing the script, and it does sound rather intriguing. The description in the original report reads:
Imagine Robert De Niro’s Jimmy the Gent character from Goodfellas, but as a ruthless Hawaiian crime boss, based on a real figure, who battled encroaching rivals for control of organized crime in Hawaii. The film focuses on a turbulent time on the island paradise when an aspiring mob boss battled rival crime factions to wrest control of the underworld of the Hawaiian islands. It was a bloody battle, the kind of terrain Scorsese covered in both Goodfellas and The Departed. In 1960s and 70s Hawaii, this formidable and charismatic mob boss rises to build the islands’ most powerful criminal empire, waging a brutal war against mainland corporations and rival syndicates while fighting to preserve his ancestral land. It’s based on the untold true story of a man who fought to preserve his homeland through a ruthless quest for absolute power — igniting the last great American mob saga, where the war for cultural survival takes place in the unlikeliest of places: paradise.
As Scorsese is 82 years old, I fear our time with the director is growing short, so I’m grateful for anything he puts out. What Happens at Night does sound like it could be something special. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, the story is described as “a dream-like story of a married American couple who travel to a small, snowy European town to adopt a baby. They check into a cavernous, largely deserted hotel where they encounter an enigmatic cast of characters including a flamboyant chanteuse, a depraved businessman and a charismatic faith healer. Nothing is quite as it seems in this strange, frozen world. As the couple struggle to claim their baby, the less they seem to know about themselves and the life they’ve built together.“
Scorsese has several other potential projects in the mix. He’s been considering a Frank Sinatra biopic (which was eyeing DiCaprio and Lawrence to star) and The Life of Jesus, based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1973 novel, but both seem to have been put on the back burner. There has also been talk of Scorsese taking the helm of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City (with DiCaprio once again starring), but that one has been in development hell for quite some time.
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