Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Lands October 2023 Release Date
Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited “Killers of the Flower Moon” epic is set to bloom this fall.
IndieWire can confirm that the Apple Original period piece starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Fraser, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, and Robert De Niro will premiere in limited release on Friday, October 6 and open wide on Friday, October 20.
The awards season placement also seems to echo the rumors that the film will bow at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, marking Scorsese’s return to the French festival since 1985’s “After Hours.”
Described as Scorsese’s first Western, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the film is based on David Grann’s non-fiction book about the series of murders in Osage County, Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was discovered on Osage Nation Indigenous land. The newly-formed FBI investigated the cases at the time.
“The film is mainly about the Osage, an Indian tribe that was given horrible territory, which they loved because they said to themselves that Whites would never be interested in it,” Scorsese said in 2020. “Then we discovered oil there and, for about 10 years, the Osage became the richest people in the world, per capita. Then, as with the Yukon and the Colorado mining regions, the vultures disembark, the White man, the European arrives, and all was lost. There, the underworld had such control over everything that you were more likely to go to jail for killing a dog than for killing an Indian.”
The Oscar winner continued, “It’s so interesting to think about the mentality that leads us to this. The history of civilization goes back to Mesopotamia. The Hittites are invaded by another people, they disappear, and later it is said that they have been assimilated or, rather, absorbed. It is fascinating to see this mentality which is reproduced in other cultures, through two world wars. And which is therefore timeless, I think. This is the film that we are going to try to make.”
The first look at the film was unveiled in May 2021 by Apple, with production wrapping later that year. The rumored runtime for “Killers of the Flower Moon” is three hours and 20 minutes.
Costume designer Jacqueline West teased that lead star DiCaprio called the film a “masterpiece.” West said, “I thought for Leo to say that, was something. He doesn’t say that lightly. He has been in the business since he was a little boy.”
West, who previously worked with DiCaprio on “The Revenant,” added, “I had the most incredible experience of my film career [on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’]. I can’t talk about that film yet because nothing has been released but I just have to say it’s the combination of someone I always wanted to work with and my absolute dream project…It was brilliantly done not just on my part but by everybody.”
For all the details on “Killers of the Flower Moon,” click here.