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Martin Scorsese makes cinema — and his latest feature, Killers of the Flower Moon, has been penciled in for a fall release date ahead of its streaming release on Apple TV+ and a first trailer has been revealed ahead of its Cannes premiere.
Killers of the Flower Moon release date
Before its theatrical and streaming release, the official Cannes Film Festival website announced on March 31 that Killers of the Flower Moon will hold its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on May 20 at the Grand Théâter Lumière.
Apple and Paramount Pictures are partnering up for the theatrical release of Killers of the Flower Moon. Variety reported that the film will receive a limited theatrical opening — presumably in New York City and Los Angeles — on Oct. 6 before going wide on Oct. 20 before its eventual streaming release on Apple TV+.
This is not far off from what we've seen other streamers do. For example, the upcoming film Air, written and directed by Ben Affleck, will first receive a full theatrical window before premiering on Prime Video and will be shown on over 3,000 screens, according to Variety. That said, this release strategy does help the film's eligibility for Oscars and gives the filmmakers and all involved their chance to have their film seen in a theater.
Scorsese is also no stranger to this new hybrid release model. His last film, The Irishman, was distributed by Netflix but got to premiere at the New York Film Festival in 2019 before getting a limited theatrical release on Nov. 1 of that year ahead of its Nov. 27 Netflix release date. While the three-and-a-half-hour epic is long, there was something special about seeing it on the big screen (my first experience seeing a Scorsese film under those circumstances). The Irishman also received a physical media release via the Criterion Collection in 2020.
Killers of the Flower Moon cast, details
Based on the best-selling 2017 novel Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the film adaptation will follow the murder investigation of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in an investigation directed by J. Edgar Hoover and Tom While (Jesse Plemons). Co-starring alongside Plemons is an all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio (his seventh collaboration with Scorsese), Robert De Niro (his 11th collaboration with Scorsese), Lily Gladstone, Brendan Fraser, John Lithgow, among many more. Martin Scorsese co-wrote the script with Eric Roth.
First trailer
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We can finally get rid of that one promo image that has been floating around for what has felt like an eternity as the first trailer (which can be viewed below) has been released.
“Can you find wolves in this picture?” asks Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) a number of times in the first trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon. Treated like a true teaser trailer, there are small snippets of what's to come including the investigation of the murders of members of the Osage tribe. There are also plenty of glimpses of De Niro, Gladstone, Plemons, and Oscar-winner Fraser.
You can take the man (Scorsese) out of the mafia genre, but you can't always take the mafia genre out of the man. Despite being set in Oklahoma — a far cry from the streets of New York City where most of his films take place — there are still bits of the type of violence and intensity you come to expect in a Martin Scorsese joint.
Killers of the Flower Moon is Scorsese's first feature film since The Irishman, a film that further proves that age is just a number. Hopefully, his latest film continues the hot streak he has been on since Gangs of New York. If this trailer is any indication, though, I think we're in good hands.
Killers of the Flower Moon will hold its world premiere on May 20 at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in limited theaters on October 6 before expanding on October 20 and will later be released on Apple TV+.
