The much-anticipated Martin Scorsese movie “Killers of the Flower Moon” won’t be coming to Apple this Oscar season. Instead of coming out in 2022, the Western drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jesse Plemons will come out in 2023.
Apple had planned to release the film in 2023. It was written by Eric Roth and based on David Grann’s best-selling book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” Will Smith’s actions at the Oscars this year changed Apple’s plans for releasing “Emancipation,” a movie about slavery starring Smith. The director and the studio talked about moving the movie’s release date up to 2022.
Scorsese is known for his hard work editing movies with Thelma Schoonmaker, who he works with often. Sources say that the $200 million “Killers of the Flower Moon” won’t be ready for this Oscar season, even though filming will end in September 2021. Instead, there are rumors that it wants to make a big festival debut in 2023, either at Cannes, Venice, or another event.
Coming off its first best picture win for “CODA,” Apple still has multiple awards hopefuls in the cards for the upcoming awards season including the Sundance Film Festival winner “Cha Cha Real Smooth” and the animated feature “Luck,” plus upcoming features from star Jennifer Lawrence (“Causeway”), director Peter Farrelly (“The Greatest Beer Run Ever”) and producer Alfonso Cuarón (“Raymond & Ray”).
“Emancipation,” which stars Will Smith and was directed by Antoine Fuqua, is still being talked about in terms of whether and how Apple could release it. In May, Variety said that the move would happen in 2023. Early rumors said that if the movie came out, it would be a strong candidate for the streamer. But Smith hasn’t said anything about what he did at the Oscars, so it’s still not clear how to present “Emancipation” to audiences and award voters.
The deadline was the first to say that the show would be late.