Fresh off of scoring 10 Oscar nominations for Killers Of The Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese is showing no signs of slowing down. He's got two long-gestating projects he'd like to clear from his To Do list, one of them a biodrama about legendary crooner Frank Sinatra's tumultuous private life. The film, assuming it all comes together, would star the director's current primary collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio as Sinatra, with Jennifer Lawrence the top choice to play his second wife, Ava Gardner.
You might think Scorsese can simply hit a button at this point to indicate that he wants to make a movie and everything simply falls into place, but it's far from that easy. Sinatra's daughter Tina controls her father's estate and hasn't yet given her blessing to the film. Which isn't hugely surprising since it aims to cover the period where Sinatra's affair with Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato, Tina’s mother.
Still, having one of the most accomplished directors and two of the biggest movie stars in the world will surely serve to have her at least consider giving the thumbs up. It'll also depend on finding a studio home, with Sony considered the front-runner despite Apple and Paramount backing Flower Moon.
In related Scorsese film news, the other project he's aiming to push forward on is a drama about Jesus, based on Silence writer Shūsaku Endō’s 1973 book. Scorsese, of course, adapted Silence with Andrew Garfield among the leads, and the director is aiming to have him also appear in this. Whether the actor would play Jesus or not has yet to be revealed.
Still running down indie financing for the film, Scorsese wants the cameras rolling later this year on a shoot in Israel, Italy and Egypt. Israel, of course, is complicated by the country's conflict with Hamas in Gaza and a location change may still happen.