Following on from his comments about blockbusters and franchises, the other big reveal to come out of the recent GQ profile on legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese ties back to the one film he won a directing Oscar for – 2006’s “The Departed”.
Considered one of Scorsese’s better films, and certainly one of his most widely appealing, the Boston-set crime thriller starred Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as a criminal undercover as a cop and a cop undercover as a criminal respectively. Each attempts to discover the other’s identity before they are found out.
The film was, of course, based on the famed 2002 Hong Kong thriller “Infernal Affairs” which itself generated two further films – a prequel and a semi-prequel/semi-sequel – as one of the two main characters died at the end of the first film.
With “The Departed,” it ends quite definitively with both characters dead. Yet according to Scorsese, if Warner Bros. Pictures had its way, then both would’ve been kept alive and the film could have launched sequels:
“What they wanted was a franchise. It wasn’t about a moral issue of a person living or dying.”
The film went to test screenings with Scorsese’s filmed version with the characters dying, and the audience reaction was great. Everyone was happy… except the studio executives:
“Then the studio guys walked out [of the test screening] and they were very sad, because they just didn’t want that movie. They wanted the franchise. Which means: I can’t work here any more.”
In the interview, Scorsese is also said to have a couple of films in development, including an adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s novel “Home” which he was working on with “Tár” director Todd Field.
As for potential retirement, Scorsese jokes that he plans to continue to make movies “until they pick me up off the floor.” His next film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” arrives in cinemas on October 20th.
