Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese is teaming up with Steven Spielberg and Nick Antosca to remake a classic entry in his filmography for TV.
Scorsese is no stranger to the small screen, having served as a director and/or producer on several shows. Of these, arguably the most notable are Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl, both of which aired on HBO.
The Oscar-winning auteur has recently embraced streaming platforms as a means of funding his features, too. Netflix picked up the tab for Scorsese’s 2019 gangster epic The Irishman, while Apple TV+ bankrolled his 2023 historical crime drama, Killers of the Flower Moon.
The Irishman received a limited theatrical release before debuting on Netflix – a distribution strategy later emulated by Apple TV+ for Killers of the Flower Moon.
Martin Scorsese is remaking one of his best movies as a TV show
Given Scorsese’s apparent ease at switching back and forth from cinema to TV, Deadline’s recent report that the director is working on a Cape Fear remake shouldn’t come as much of a shock.
'Cape Fear' Series From Nick Antosca, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese & UCP Heats Up TV Marketplace https://t.co/naOPilCYT4
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) November 21, 2023
This isn’t the first time Scorsese has retold this story, either. His 1991 version of Cape Fear was itself a do-over of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 thriller of the same name, which was in turn an adaptation of a John D. MacDonald novel, The Executioners.
That said, the Cape Fear remake – co-developed by Scorsese with fellow Hollywood heavyweight Spielberg and The Act showrunner Antosca – won’t necessarily retread old ground. On the contrary, a logline for production obtained by Variety suggests that it will revamp and update MacDonald’s novel and its previous two adaptations.
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The logline reads as follows: “A storm is coming for a pair of married attorneys when an infamous killer from their past gets released after years in prison. A tense, contemporary thriller that examines America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century.”
This revised take appears to have won over the higher-ups at several networks and streamers. Deadline’s sources claim that a bidding war is currently underway for the distribution rights to the Cape Fear series.
Killers of the Flower Moon nabs Scorsese box office milestone
The bidding war for Cape Fear is especially notable given Killers of the Flower Moon underperformed at the box office. While the film is one of Scorsese’s most commercially successful efforts, it’s currently on track to lose money due to its $200 million budget and expensive marketing campaign.
Industry analyst David A. Gross recently disputed Killers of the Flower Moon’s supposed box office bomb status, however, noting that the movie’s hybrid release model makes evaluating its performance difficult. “We’ll never know how Apple and the streamers really allocate their production costs,” Gross said. “And how they tie their subscription income to production.”
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