Martin Scorsese’s next project will be another David Grann adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
In July 2022, Deadline reported that Scorsese and DiCaprio were teaming up once again to adapt The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by Grann into a movie. Scorsese and DiCaprio’s latest project, Killers of the Flower Moon, is also an adaptation of a Grann novel and hits theaters on October 20, 2023.
Speaking with Scorsese in a recent interview, The Times confirmed The Wager would be the Goodfellas director’s next project. The publication described the upcoming movie as “another huge production.”
“I don’t want to slow down,” Scorsese said. “At my age, your body tells you at a certain point you need to pace yourself, but I’m still searching for, as I mentioned earlier, the answer to how we take care of each other. I thought that my films should reflect that. I have tried the best that I can.”
Additionally, Scorsese said he’s also adapting Home, a 2008 novel by Marilynne Robinson, into a feature film. He’s also previously spoken about working on a new movie about Jesus he decided to make after meeting with Pope Francis in May 2023.
What is The Wager about?
Published in April 2023, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder is a non-fiction novel about a British vessel that left England in 1740. While chasing down a long-lost treasure in South America, the ship crashed on an isolated island surrounding Argentina, leaving the crew stranded.
“The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas,” the novel’s synopsis reads. “They were greeted as heroes. But then … six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.”
