The 1992 movie Martin Scorsese worked on for 12 years before giving up: “We really tried”
TikTok sensation, The Mandalorian and Grogu star, former Michael Jackson collaborator, and AI endorser Martin Scorsese has been called many things over the years, but a quitter hasn’t been one of them.
When the filmmaker has his heart set on something, he’ll usually move heaven and earth to ensure it happens one day, as seen through his years, if not decades-long, battles to bring The Last Temptation of Christ, Silence, Gangs of New York, and The Irishman to the screen, to name but four.
Along the way, he endured setbacks of a personal and professional nature, studio squabbling, financial issues, creative malaise, and almost everything that can possibly plague an auteur throughout the development process, only to emerge on the other side with an acclaimed, awards-worthy epic.
Based on that, you’d think that if Scorsese funnelled a dozen years of his life into trying to tell a cinematic story, nothing would stop him from making it a reality. As you can see from the titles named above, that’s almost always been the case, apart from that one time he did the unthinkable: he held his hands up, admitted defeat, and walked away.
In 1992, Scorsese purchased the rights to Nick Tosche’s Dino, a biography on Dean Martin. He’d always been a fan of the crooner, movie star, ‘Rat Pack’ member, and ‘King of Cool’, and he even had a leading man and supporting cast in mind, with Tom Hanks eyed for the lead role and hypothetical support from the star-studded likes of John Travolta, Hugh Grant, and Jim Carrey as his comedic idol, Jerry Lewis.
Recruiting Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi in the hopes that lightning would strike twice, it didn’t. Undeterred, Scorsese sought to recapture a different kind of screenwriting magic by enlisting Paul Schrader to head up another draft alongside another name he was very familiar with, Irwin Winkler.
By the end of 2004, though, Dino was dead in the water. “We really tried, but the story of Dean Martin is very difficult, very difficult,” the director reiterated. “It’s because ultimately he pulls back in life. He pulled back and seemed to be passive, and that was part of what was appreciated about him from Sinatra and everyone else.”
The atrocious 1982 movie Tom Cruise couldn’t even get an audition for: “Oh, he’s too short”
The classic 1990s TV show Eddie Murphy watches every single day: “Two episodes, then lights out”
The 2000 Billy Bob Thornton movie only Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are convinced is a masterpiece: “Maybe I’m wrong”
It’s not like Scorsese to question his ability to tell a story, but Martin broke him. “Can you make a film and say what the man is about?” he asked, rhetorically, since he never made the film. “I don’t think that you can ever make a fiction, or even a documentary. Look, we really couldn’t get a handle on what to do.”
He was well and truly stumped, so the Academy Award-winning legend washed his hands of Dino altogether. That doesn’t bode too well for his Frank Sinatra biopic, no matter how intent he seems to get it in front of the cameras, since he’s been working on that one in some capacity since 1999.
