departed Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Martin Scorsese is looking to direct The Wolf of Wall Street, starring -- who else? Leonardo DiCaprio. The film will be an adaptation of Jordan Belfort's upcoming book, which is set for release in September and sounds like pretty juicy stuff. Terence Winter, one of The Sopranos' best writers, will be adapting. Scorsese has been announced as attached or close to attached to an awful lot of projects lately: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt with DiCaprio, a possible sequel and prequel to last year's incredibly awesome The Departed, rock and roll epic The Long Play -- which is being written by William Monahan, Silence -- a film about 17th century Jesuit priests, Last Duel -- a period piece about the last duel officially sanctioned by the French government, even a childrens' movie -- The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He's also in post-production on a Rolling Stones documentary.

I think it's safe to assume he's not going to tackle all of these projects, I wonder which will get edged out? I love that after some 40 years in the business, the fast-talking legend is "hot" right now. It's great, the more Scorsese in the world, the better. DiCaprio would play Belfort, "a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street, and in the corporate banking world, including mob infiltration." (I must say, this sounds much more exciting to me than the 17th century priests). The film is said to have a great supporting role as well: the FBI agent who tries to make Belfort an informant.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about Scorsese working almost exclusively with Leonardo DiCaprio these days. You'd think new collaborations would breed more creative, fresh experiences. I think Leo is certainly talented, but it's not like the dude's DeNiro or something. Scorsese can cast pretty much whoever he wants in whatever he wants. Why not mix it up?

If I were Mark Wahlberg, I would never say anything that could jeopardize my relationship with our greatest living director, the honorable Martin Scorsese. (If I were Mark Wahlberg, I'd also probably be writing this on a laptop made of solid gold while sandwiched between Jessicas Alba and Biel on an enormous pile of money in a mansion made of chocolate. But that's neither here nor there). Wahlberg doesn't seem intimidated by the legend, however. He is telling the press everything wasn't so civil between the two of them on the set of Best Picture winner The Departed. They didn't reach Lily Tomlin/David O. Russell levels, but things did get pretty heated. "Marty and I were constantly in this struggle," says Wahlberg. "I had problems with Marty."

"I was only supposed to do a couple of weeks on The Departed so I was able to grow my hair for Invincible, says Wahlberg. "But then the schedule changed and four months later I'm still working on The Departed, so I wouldn't cut my hair and Marty was pissed off. He was like, 'You've got to cut your f***ing hair,' and I was, 'I don't give a f***.' He was, 'I'm Martin Scorsese... da-dee da.' I said, 'Well, I'm not getting paid for this... da-dee-da. What the f***?' He was pushing me in different ways." Again, if I'm Mark Wahlberg, and Martin Scorsese tells me to jump naked into a room full of razor blades and then roll around in lemon juice, I'm jumping. But as we have already established, I am not Mark Wahlberg.

According to the former President of the Funky Bunch, the dynamic duo has moved on. "We were able to laugh about it afterwards and we have a great relationship now and we're going to do other stuff in the future." Specifically, the pair has been discussing both a prequel and a sequel to The Departed. Says Wahlberg: "I've never made a prequel or sequel to any movie I've done before and they will have to be better than the first one, but obviously, with a guy like Marty it seems like a pretty safe bet." I'll tell you what's a safe bet, Wahlberg -- making a sequel to Rock Star that's better than the first one. It would simply have to be.

Hollywood "Brit Girl" Emily Blunt has just signed on to play Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria. The movie is reported to chronicle the turbulent early years of Queen Victoria's rule, as well as her romance with Prince Albert, which yielded nine children. Martin Scorsese is producing the film with Graham King. (King accepted the last Oscar of the night this year, as producer on Scorsese's The Departed). Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay, he's no stranger to Oscar himself, having won for his script for 2001's Gosford Park. Blunt was nominated for a Academy Award Golden Globe for her cute turn in The Devil Wears Prada -- perhaps seeing Helen Mirren clutching that trophy for The Queen drove her into the regal role?

I'll be Blunt with you -- Emily Blunt's in a lot of damn movies. Next month you can see her in the horror flick Wind Chill. This Christmas she'll be in Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War, with indie darlings Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks. She's also in The Jane Austen Book Club, (Zzzzzzz!), cool-sounding magician pic The Great Buck Howard with Hanks again and John Malkovich, Dan in Real Life with friend of comedy Steve Carell and foe of comedy Dane Cook, and the independent Sunshine Cleaning with Alan Arkin and the adorable Amy Adams. Whew! In conclusion, if you go to see a movie in the next couple years, there's a 50% chance Emily Blunt will be in it. No studio is attached just yet to The Young Victoria, but it sounds like a very classy affair. King, Scorsese, Fellowes, there's a lotta Oscar folks working on this thing! Might we have a contender?

A few weeks back Erik D. dropped some info that we all kinda knew was coming (well, those of us who are familiar with the Infernal Affairs series, anyway) -- Martin Scorsese's The Departed may soon yield a sequel ... and perhaps a prequel. It's a natural progression, of course, when you consider that The Departed was based on the first film in a well-established series, but as Erik mentioned last month, Scorsese is not exactly a "sequel-maker." (If memory serves, his only follow-up was 1986's The Color of Money.)

Adding new fuel to the fire (as if the film's box office performance and Oscar nods aren't enough) are some comments that freshly-nominated Mark Wahlberg made to Empire Magazine: "They're talking about bringing in De Niro to play a senator or a congressman....You know, the corruption obviously going deeper and higher up the ranks -- reaching up the political chain. So it'll be fun. And if it's a success, they're gonna do a prequel and bring everyone back....make it a trilogy." The former pop idol also mentioned that screenwriter William Monahan is currently banging away on the Departed 2 screenplay and that production could begin as early as December. And for the record, Martin Scorsese has not technically signed on for this project yet.

The Departed opened in theaters on Friday, and the stars are about beating the bushes in an effort to pack the audiences in. However, Jack Nicholson won't be one of them. He is apparently suffering from a mysterious neck injury sustained at the New York premiere of the film, and a close friend said, "We don't know exactly what is wrong, but something is wrong with his neck."

It's a bit odd that this was even reported, because Jack normally shuns the whole talk-show circuit when he has a new film to promote, and rarely grants interviews. Can you remember the last time you saw him chatting with Regis or Leno? While not exactly Greta Garbo, he does take up residence behind his Ray-Ban sunglasses frequently and cuts off the world. He's not exactly camera shy, but he's not that gabby with the press either.

Anyhow, we've attended quite a few movies, and unless Nicholson was sitting in the front row, we're not sure how he injured his neck. When big event films like this come out, there are press junkets, radio interviews and TV appearances galore. Is Jack just trying to duck out like normal and leave it all to Matt and Leo? Hopefully he's fine, because things just wouldn't be the same without Nicholson around.

Keep your neck on the line, Jack.

Related posts:

Junket Report: The Departed

Review: The Departed -- James' Take

Review: The Departed -- Jeff's Take