I was beginning to think that Martin Scorsese was on a merry-go-round of music and organized mayhem, since he's been quite busy balancing crime with big-screen concert-going. But just as it looks like he's in a rut, Scorsese throws us something from left field. Well, not quite left field since we heard about it back in 2006, but close enough.Variety reports that he's "determined" to make Silence next. Based on the Japanese novel, the film will follow a few Jesuit priests who head to Japan in the name of Christianity, only to discover that converts are being persecuted in defiance of Western influence. Marty has been sitting on this sucker for eons (he wrote a script of the Japanese novel ten years ago), and was set to film it in Vancouver in 2007. But now it's headed to New Zealand (Canada, sheep land, same difference?!), and Marty is negotiating with Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro to star, with Gael Garcia Bernal also entering talks.
I've been itching to see what he'd make of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, but you can't blame a guy for getting a decade-old project into gear, especially when you've got Daniel and Benicio ready to star. But will it still have "implications related to the war in Iraq"? And how will he fare on "Japanese" turf?
