Martin Scorsese is bound to gain extra budgeting love from somebody in the streaming world. His current most likely suitor for Killers of the Flower Moon is Apple, according to Variety.
Paramount will distribute the murder mystery drama and Apple has boarded to finance the project and serve as its creative studio. The deal hasn’t closed yet, Variety reported.
Apple, Paramount Partner on Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ | IndieWire
What little I know about Killers of the Flower Moon sounds like good source material for another Scorsese movie and won’t deny through his long and storied film career that he deserves somebody to step in and help him with the budget. My only question is why somebody as experienced as him can’t better map out the budget in advance?
Netflix, Apple and Amazon remained strong possibilities for budgetary help. This trend is concerning on a number of levels. It’s one thing to be an established director looking for a cost overrun assistance (see: Martin Scorsese – Great Director Struggling Staying Within Budget), but these days streaming companies seem all too willing to open their wallets for most any movie project from anybody. Their desperation for volumes of new content needs to be tempered with fiscal responsibility. Don’t ask Netflix too much for that (they are outspending everybody for original content), but Amazon and Apple have been better in that department.
Lower, more sensible, responsible budgets, a smaller theatrical window, better synergy and cooperation between studio and movie theaters and (gasp!) streaming — the entertainment world would be a better, smarter place with these constructs. My argument is we’d receive better movies with an eye to creativity instead of fancy special effects and ridiculously cliched scripts.
What do you think?
Good to see the streamers jump in and bail out budgets? It depends on what director it is? Would you like to see more lower budget, yet quality creative films being made?
Movies, Movies, Movies 
On the one hand I’m glad to see the streamers there to jump in and get content made but all I could think when I heard the price tag for this one was why? Why? Is it star/director salary?
I doubt they’d ever answer but I also wonder if Netflix really believes they got a good return for the money spend on the Irishman.
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Hundreds of millions of dollars for any movie seems like far too much to me. The Irishman was at least one hour too long, didn’t truly *need* the overly expensive de-aging technology … and yet now Apple is paying for another over the budget movie. Yes, I’m glad we will get to see it, but your question is very valid.
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At the end of the day a good quality film is the most important thing for me. I read the bookk about the Flower Moon People and learned so much about them and especially the FBI. I would love to see this as a movie and done right.
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Do you think budget has much to do with quality of the movie? So many great movies were made on little to no budget (Rocky $1 million) … sure times have changed, but it seems like today there is this belief — wrong or right — that a higher budget somehow improves the quality of the movie.
Curious if you think the two are directly related or not. What do you think?
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