Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Leonardo DiCaprio are set to star in a Hawaii-set crime drama directed by Martin Scorsese
Director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have made six movies together so far – Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) – and they’re always looking to get another collaboration off the ground. Recently, we’ve heard rumblings that they could reunite for a Frank Sinatra biopic or the true crime serial killer project The Devil in the White City. Now, there’s another Scorsese / DiCaprio project being pitched, as Deadline reports that Jungle Cruise and Smashing Machine co-stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are attached to star in a Scorsese-directed, Hawaii-set crime drama alongside DiCaprio.
Nick Bilton is set to write the screenplay for the film. Here’s what Deadline has heard about it: 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.
Scorsese, Johnson, Blunt, DiCaprio, and Bilton will be producing with Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette, and Rick Yorn. Johnson and Blunt brought the idea to Scorsese and DiCaprio, and they worked together to choose Bilton as the screenwriter. Bilton will start writing the script once the project gets set up at a studio… which won’t be long, because the bidding war is already in progress. As Deadline notes, “This is poised to be a big one.”
Does a Martin Scorsese crime drama that’s set in Hawaii and stars Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Leonardo DiCaprio sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Originally published at https://www.joblo.com/scorsese-dicaprio-johnson-blunt/
