Before The Good Shepherd – Robert De Niro’s second movie as a director, starring Matt Damon as a buttoned-up spy in an epic, decades-spanning look at the development of the CIA – opened in 2006, there had been talk that De Niro and the movie’s writer, Eric Roth, had concocted plans for a trilogy.
Then the movie met with a respectful, if muted, critical response and a worldwide gross of (just ) under $100 million, and that seemed to be that.
Yet De Niro picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival this weekend, and revealed that he’s still hoping to make another two films following Damon’s anti-Bourne, Edward Wilson.
The second film would follow Wilson and the CIA from 1961 to 1989, while the third movie would bring us up to date.
De Niro, being De Niro, didn’t reveal too much about the movies – what stage they’re at, if Roth is writing them etc. etc. – but he did say that he might take advantage of his European sojourn to do some preliminary investigation. “I had not been planning to do research on that while here, but it is a good idea,” he said.
While we can’t say that we’re doing cartwheels over the prospect of two more Good Shepherd movies – the Damon character was a bit of a cold fish – there was certainly enough quality in the first movie for us to welcome the prospect of De Niro sliding back behind the camera again. And it’s not like there’s a dearth of CIA-related material from the last 40/50 years for De Niro and Roth to focus on.
De Niro also told reporters at the festival that he was working on his next movie with Martin Scorsese but wouldn’t say what it was. The Winter Of Frankie Machine, we’re guessing. Whatever it is, it’s coming in 2009, he said, which makes us positively giddy. De Niro and Marty back together? Bada bing!