Leonardo DiCaprio asked to change the ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ script
While Killers of the Flower Moon is receiving almost universal acclaim, the new movie from Martin Scorsese could have been a whole lot different if its lead actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, hadn’t interfered and asked for the script to be changed two years into the writing process.
Based on a series of murders that plagued the Native American Osage tribe in 1920s Oklahoma, the movie stars DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, the nephew of a wealthy yet sinister political boss in Osage county, played by Robert DeNiro, and Lily Gladstone as Osage native Mollie Kyle.
So far, the movie has drawn significant praise, including a standing ovation for Gladstone at the Cannes Film Festival and a four-and-a-half-star review from Far Out‘s own Thomas Leatham, who described Killers of the Flower Moon as “utterly captivating.”
However, in an interview with the Irish Times, director Scorsese revealed that DiCaprio read the script after two years of work had been done by Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth – and asked for it to be seriously reworked. Initially, the movie was to be “from the point of view of the bureau agents coming in to investigate”.
DiCaprio, however, asked, “Where is the heart of this story?” – which prompted Scorsese to rethink the project and sit down for dinners with the Osage tribe. After further discussions and research, the director explains, “The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.”
By the end of the process, Scorsese had met with 300 Oklahoma’s Gray Horse community members. “I always said if I ever get involved with anything that has to do with indigenous people,” the director explained. “I’d better know who the people are or, at least, feel comfortable with them as human beings.”
At the film’s premiere in Cannes earlier in May, the principal chief of the Osage Nation, Geoffrey Standing Bear, showered praise on the movie and its filmmakers, saying, “On behalf of the Osage, Marty Scorsese has restored trust. And we know that trust will not be betrayed.”
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