The Martin Scorsese passion project eventually directed by Johnny Depp
One might think that if Martin Scorsese has a movie he wants to make, then he bloody well gets it made. However, even the most notorious movie directors can still experience difficulties getting their passion projects to be fully realised, as Scorsese once found with a biopic based on one of his favourite artists.
Following Scorsese’s early success with Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, he was the hottest property in the American film industry and set about delivering timeless classic after timeless classic. The likes of The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino arrived before the 20th-century was said and done, establishing Scorsese as a master of his craft.
Still, according to the director himself, the 1980s was a period in Scorsese’s professional career during which few figures in the industry would offer him a project. In an interview with Empire, he admitted that The King of Comedy only arrived on screen because he and frequent acting collaborator Robert De Niro were “trying different things”.
1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ was also a film that Scorsese struggled to get made, with a major studio dropping out just before it was set to go into production. At least that film made it to completion, though, because the same could not be said for Scorsese’s biographical drama about the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Al Pacino had wanted to make the film based on Dennis McIntyre’s play Modigliani, and after Francis Ford Coppola turned it down, it landed in the lap of Scorsese, who was impressed. Discussing the film with Empire, Scorsese noted, “It was about the extraordinary struggle to create art. The sadness of it, the absinthe. He and [his companion] Soutine taking care of each other, with her convincing him to brush his teeth. It really would have been something special, I think.”
However, Pacino and Scorsese could not quite get the project to be fully realised, with Scorsese receiving criticism for how his 1980s period had turned out. He explained, “Someone who was a big producer in Hollywood said to my face, ‘You’re washed up. Where are you going to get the money to do it?’ I didn’t have the influence anymore. I was from a certain period — the world had changed and you just weren’t bankable, as they say.”
The film sat in no man’s land for several years, before Pacino and 20th Century Studios revived it in the 2010s. However, it wasn’t until 2022 that it was announced that Johnny Depp would be directing the film, with Pacino serving as co-producer. The 2024 movie is based on McIntyre’s play with an adapted screenplay by Jerzy and Mary Kromolowski.
Depp had not directed a movie since 1997’s The Brave, in which he starred alongside Marlon Brando “The saga of Mr. Modigliani’s life is one that I’m incredibly honored, and truly humbled, to bring to the screen,” Depp had said in a statement. “It was a life of great hardship, but eventual triumph — a universally human story all viewers can identify with.”
Pacino said he was glad to be working with Depp for the first time since Jack & Jill, although a sad fact remains that Scorsese was unable to take the reins so many years prior, when he had been burning with passion for the Italian artist’s work.
