While it’s been very difficult of late to figure out what Martin Scorsese will follow Killers of the Flower Moon (already a couple years out from its Cannes premiere), today brings some of the closest confirmation of where he’ll head next. Surprise: Leonardo DiCaprio is coming with.

Per Publisher’s Weekly, Apple Original Films have obtained rights to Marilynne Robinson’s four Gilead novels, the second of which, Home, Scorsese has discussed since 2023. DiCaprio will lead the film, produced by Todd Field, who’s co-written Home with Scorsese and Kent Jones while said to be handling the first entry, Gilead, though the article notes an ambiguity around “plans to adapt the remaining books in the series.”

The news suggests DiCaprio would play Jack Boughton, a wayward alcholic who returns to his hometown of Gilead to take care of a dying father alongside his sister Glory. These roles recur in Robinson’s other books, suggesting notable commitments from DiCaprio and whoever is cast therein––a major prospect all its own. Whatever transpires, it’s wonderful knowing Scorsese is nearing a project for which he’s expressed such passion.

There is, of course, the legend that Martin Scorsese’s career nearly ended at Raging Bull: after the disappointments of New York, New York and attendant personal struggles, he (for at least some time) considered the boxing biopic––handled with a “kamikaze” mindset––a fine end of the road. That, of course, did not happen, but we’ve come closer to other retirements than most realize: in a great new GQ profile, Scorsese reveals the one-two punch of Gangs of New York (about which most know Weinstein-inflicted wounds) and The Aviator (on which Warner and Miramax cut funding, forcing him to perosnally spend $500,000) nearly made him give up. His next movie would nab Best Director and Best Picture Oscars and troubles were averted, but nobody predicted as much at the time.

At nearly 81 the speculation starts again––first with a pre-Cannes Killers of the Flower Moon interview in which Scorsese dwelled on age, then seemingly quelled by news of a couple films he had in development, but restarted by said GQ profile. As he told Zach Baron, with key parts highlighted:

“I got as far as this. And that’s what I do. That’s it. And if I could just muster up the energy, God willing, to make a couple more, one more maybe, and that’s it, okay? That’s as far as I got. You keep going until you can’t. But what I mean is that you gotta rip it out of your skull and your guts. To find out what the hell you really…what do you really feel should be said at this point in life by you? You gotta say something with a movie. Otherwise, what’s the point of making it? You’ve got to be saying something. […] How much longer can it be me? I’m gonna be 81. […] I don’t know! I’m gonna try until they pick me up off the floor. What can I tell you?”

Therein it’s also noted that his recently revealed adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s Home was being developed with Todd Field and Kent Jones––the former to whom he expressed great admiration for Tár, the latter a longtime collaborator on documentaries and the Film Foundation––before the WGA strike. (You don’t need me to even share a link for a sense of where that’s gone in the last, oh, 16 hours.) That, quite literally, fits the bill for “one more.” “A couple more” could include his fascinating-sounding (second) Jesus film, for which the literal Pope’s directives might elevate “could” to “would.” We’ll see.

But as Teri Garr told Griffin Dunne in After Hours, “Lighten up! What is this? This doom and gloom?” Killers of the Flower Moon is less than a month from release, and with it tickets are now on-sale. With it’s come two new posters (one IMAX, one Dolby) and a behind-the-scenes featurette––nothing as substantive as 206 minutes of a film we believe is quite strong, but a satiation all the same.

Find them below:

Ten years ago, responding to rumors he’d sought to retire, Martin Scorsese succinctly replied, “You’ll have to tackle me to stop me.” Like a lunar cycle following the director on the occasion of three-hour-plus epics starring Leonardo DiCaprio, received wisdom again has it the man’s looking to settle down––then again, a rather elegiac interview on the eve of Killers of the Flower Moon‘s debut would only generate attention of the sort.

Between that film’s Cannes premiere (we have reliably heard it’s very good) and October 20 release, a fantastic profile from Stephanie Zacharek mentions a couple of irons in Scorsese’s fire. Among “lots of movie projects” are an adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s Home, companion novel to her Pulitzer-winner Gilead, and the synopsis of which is simply steeped in Late Style:

The Reverend Boughton’s hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past.

There’s also the matter of his Jesus movie––the new Jesus movie, not that old one. Scorsese claimed that, after visiting the Vatican earlier this year, he “responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus.” One wonders what new territory there is to explore; Scorsese seems to think there’s plenty. And it seems worth sharing his full quote, so intriguing it is, that in addition to growing from “some of the ideas he explored in Silence,” well:

I don’t know what it’s going to be, exactly. I don’t know what you’d call it. It wouldn’t be a straight narrative. But there would be staged scenes. And I’d be in it.

Is this Cassavetes (ahem) disciple gearing up for his Opening Night? Has this old friend of New York’s underground cinema been revisiting the work of Yvonne Rainer? Such a deeply personal, possibly fragmentary vision from a master in his twilight years––as a long-lapsed Catholic I finally have something to thank the Pope for.