Killers of the Flower Moon
Introduction of Killers of the Flower Moon:
Martin Scorsese’s 2023 American epic Western murder thriller “Killers of the Flower Moon” inspired by the 2017, novel of the same name by David Grann. Roth and Scorsese both co-wrote the screenplay. The story of Killers of the Flower Moon revolves around many Oklahoma killings that took place in the Osage Nation in the 1920s after oil was found on tribe territory.
The ensemble cast, which also stars Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser, is led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone. Killers of the Flower Moon marks the eleventh and final feature film project that Scorsese has worked on with his musical companion Robbie Robertson, who passed away two months before the film’s premiere; it is also the sixth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio and the tenth with De Niro. Its IMDb rating is 8.1/10
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After Imperative Entertainment obtained the rights to adapt the book for the big screen, development got underway in March 2016. Production was scheduled to start in early 2018; Scorsese and DiCaprio were committed to the project in 2017.
After many setbacks and postponements due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the filming of Killers of the Flower Moon was supposed to start in February 2021. Apple TV+ and Paramount Pictures were confirmed to finance and distribute the movie. Ultimately, between April and October of 2021, principal photography was conducted in Osage County and Washington County. The $200 million budget for the movie, which was co-produced by DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions and Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions, was reputedly the most amount ever spent on an Oklahoma-shot movie.
The 76th Cannes Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon on May 20, 2023. On October 20, 2023, both Paramount Pictures and Apple TV+, under their Apple Original Films banner, released it in theatres across the United States. The movie will be available to view on Apple TV+ at an undisclosed time. In addition to earning critical praise, the movie has made $55 million worldwide.
Cast:
Storyline:
As a symbol of their sorrow over their descendants’ integration into white American culture, Osage elders sombrely bury a ceremonial pipe. Some Osage discover oil leaking from the ground while strolling through their Oklahoma reservation, which is home to the annual “flower moon” phenomena, in which larger plants kill off smaller ones around May. Oil mining on their territory makes the tribe affluent, but federal rules force white guardians to handle their finances.
Following his war years, Ernest Burkhart returned to his rancher uncle William King Hale in 1919. On the reservation, William King Hale also takes in Ernest’s brother Byron. Wearing masks, the brothers rob the Osage people with guns.
Hale, sometimes known as “King,” is a reserve deputy sheriff who pretends to be an amiable Osage benefactor by speaking their language and giving them presents, but he is plotting to kill them and take their riches. Ernest, a cab driver, is instructed by him to give Mollie Kyle, an Osage whose family has oil headlights, extra attention. The two finally fall in love, and their marriage is celebrated with elements of both Catholicism and Osage culture.
As additional members of Mollie’s family pass away, Hale informs Ernest that he will receive a larger portion of the headlights. He has previously given the order to kill other affluent Osage. He now gives the order to have Mollie’s sister Minnie’s husband poison her gradually until she dies from a disease that resembles wasting away, and he also orders the murder of her other sister, the disobedient Anna, by gunfire.
Both an Osage council that calls on the tribe’s members to retaliate and Mollie’s mother, Lizzie Q, place the responsibility on the white occupants of the reservation. As she passes away in her bed, Lizzie imagines her ancestors greeting her in the afterlife. The on-screen 1921 anti-Black Tulsa race riot serves as the background for these events.
Ernest first shows hesitation to murder Mollie, with whom he has two children, but Hale persuades him, and he has Ernest inject Mollie with insulin to poison her. The same debilitating sickness that strikes Minnie also strikes Mollie. Hale violently paddles Ernest after he commits another murder. In addition, Hale gives Ernest the order to blow up Rita’s house to kill her and her husband, the last surviving sister of Mollie.
Hale also commands the execution of Mollie’s first husband, Henry Roan. Mollie now possesses all of her family’s headlights, which Ernest will receive after her death. Since Mollie engaged William J. Burns as a private investigator, the man has not received any outside assistance: an Osage tribe representative who was in Washington, D.C., to petition Congress is killed, and a group of thugs led by Ernest beat and drove Burns and Burns out of the reservation.
Mollie goes to Washington on her own and asks President Calvin Coolidge for assistance despite her deteriorating health. To look into the matter, Agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. and assistants are dispatched by the Bureau of Investigation (BOI).
The identity of the mastermind behind the scheme becomes clear to the detectives; Hale attempts to hide his tracks by killing a number of his own hired murderers, but White unearths the truth and takes him and Ernest into custody. Mollie is found almost dead by the agents, and they provide her with the care she needs, even if Ernest once purposefully consumes some of the poison himself.
Ernest is forced to confess by White, who also convinces him to turn state’s evidence and testify against Hale in return for legal protection. Ernest is forced to testify after one of his and Mollie’s three children dies from whooping cough, despite W. S. Hamilton, Hale’s lawyer, convincing Ernest to swear that his confession was the product of torture. Mollie has one final meeting with Ernest, but after he lies to her and claims he did not poison her, Mollie leaves. Through a radio program, an epilogue is given.
Hale and Ernest both received life sentences; Byron escaped jail time by turning state’s testimony, but Ernest was granted parole. Osage protests, but in the end, Ernest and Hale are freed and go their ways. Later life events are revealed by Scorsese, the producer of the radio show: Mollie divorced Ernest, passed away from diabetes in 1937 at the age of 50, and was buried with her family. There was no reference to the killings in her obituary. These days, the Osage honour their culture with a grand tribal dance.
Production:
It was revealed in June 2019 that Paramount Pictures would handle the movie’s distribution. To discuss how the Osage Nation could be engaged with the film’s production, Scorsese travelled to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, on July 26, 2019, to meet with Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear. Filming is slated to begin in the summer of 2020. A few days later, it was announced that De Niro had joined the cast.
The “look and feel of the film” were still being worked out, but Scorsese’s cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto stated in December 2019 that the movie was scheduled to begin main filming in March 2020. DiCaprio and De Niro’s involvement in the movie was revealed on January 19, 2020, during the 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards. DiCaprio received $30 million for his performance.
It was revealed in April 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic had forced an indefinite halt to Killers of the Flower Moon filming. Amid worries from Paramount over the movie’s $200 million budget, Scorsese has approached Netflix and Apple TV+ to finance and distribute the movie. An agreement involving Paramount and another partner in the movie remained on the table. It was revealed in May 2020 that Apple TV+ would co-finance and co-distribute Killers of the Flower Moon, with Paramount serving as the distributor.
Jesse Plemons and Lily Gladstone joined the cast in February 2021. DiCaprio sought to play the nephew of the main antagonist played by Robert De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon, even though the character of Thomas White, the lead BOI agent, was created for him. Consequently, DiCaprio was cast as Ernest Burkhart and Jesse Plemons as White to replace him. Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, and Jillian Dion joined the cast in March.
April saw the addition of Tatanka Means, Michael Abbott Jr., Pat Healy, Scott Shepherd, Louis Cancelmi, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, and William Belleau. Jack Fisk, an Oscar nominee, and Martin Scorsese collaborated on the movie for the first time when he joined as a production designer in April 2021. Steve Eastin, Barry Corbin, and Gary Basaraba joined the cast in June. The cast had been announced to include Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow in August 2021.
Filming of Killers of the Flower Moon:
It was anticipated that filming on Killers of the Flower Moon would start in Oklahoma in February 2021. Filming took place at Pawhuska, Fairfax, and Bartlesville, in Osage County and Washington County, starting on April 19, 2021, for principal photography.
“We are thrilled to finally start production on Killers of the Flower Moon in Oklahoma,” Scorsese stated in a press release before the start of filming. We must be able to convey an authentic picture of the period and its inhabitants so that this story may be told on the very ground where these events occurred.
With special thanks to all of our Osage consultants and cultural advisors, we are excited to be working on this shoot with Apple, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, and The Osage Nation. We can’t wait to begin filming this story and immortalizing a period of American history that should never be forgotten in collaboration with our local cast and crew.”
Production continued unabated, with De Niro’s next sequences scheduled to be filmed in June 2021, despite the actor’s off-set quadriceps muscle injury that occurred on May 13 and his subsequent visit to New York City for medical attention. On October 1, 2021, the filming of Killers of the Flower Moon concluded. At the Tulsa Press Club on March 25, 2022, Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear stated, ” He was counselled It is tentatively planned for Killers of the Flower Moon to film more scenes of an Osage County traditional community dance in mid-May.”
Gladstone stated in January 2023 that the Osage Nation’s input had significantly altered the film from what Scorsese had initially envisioned and that their collaboration had benefited the film. Gladstone also stated “The work is better when you let the world inform your work” in an interview at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
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Box Office:
Killers of the Flower Moon has made $55.8 million globally as of October 25, 2023, with $30.2 million in revenue in the US and Canada and $25.6 million in other markets. It was anticipated that Killers of the Flower Moon would make $20–25 million in its first weekend of release from 3,621 cinemas in the US and Canada. On its opening day, Killers of the Flower Moon brought in $9.4 million, which included $2.6 million from Thursday night previews.
After holding over from Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, it went on to debut at $23 million, placing second. With an attendance of 61% men and “an amazing” 38% over 45, the total was higher than the typical Scorsese-DiCaprio cooperation ($19 million), the highest opening of Scorsese-De Niro collaborations (beating Cape Fear’s $10.2 million in 1991), and the third-best of Scorsese’s career.
Release Date of Killers of the Flower Moon:
On May 20, 2023, the 76th Cannes Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon, which was followed by a nine-minute standing ovation. Due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, none of the cast members were present at the film’s United States debut, which took place on September 27, 2023, at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Apple TV+ (under their Apple Original Films label) and Paramount Pictures had originally scheduled Killers of the Flower Moon to be released in a few theatres on October 6, 2023, before it went wide in the US on October 20, 2023. On October 20, the movie will be released in theatres all across the world. Nevertheless, the restricted release was eventually cancelled. After it opens in theatres, the movie will be available for streaming on Apple TV+.
According to Variety, Rai Cinema and Leone Film Group in Italy have obtained the rights for local theatrical distribution, surpassing Paramount, having managed to win the rights mid-production. It was reported that the movie would also be distributed in IMAX theatres just before the release of the second trailer in July 2023.
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