A new project that has filmmaker Martin Scorsese attached is generating hot buzz. For what is seemingly familiar territory for the much-celebrated auteur known for popular gangster dramas such as Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed and The Irishman, the project comes from the mind of British author and journalist Nick Bilton, who has directed the documentary Fake Famous.
Bilton's subject is centred on the activity of the Hawaiian underworld in the 1960s and 70s. Dwayne Johnson is being eyed to play a "formidable and charismatic mob boss rises to build the islands’ most powerful criminal empire, waging a brutal war against mainland corporations and rival syndicates while fighting to preserve his ancestral land."
According to Deadline, which broke the news, the project is based on "the untold true story of a man who fought to preserve his homeland through a ruthless quest for absolute power — igniting the last great American mob saga, where the war for cultural survival takes place in the unlikeliest of places: paradise."
Scorsese, Johnson, Blunt, DiCaprio, and Bilton will also serve as producers alongside Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette and Rick Yorn.
If the project comes to fruition, it would mark DiCaprio's seventh collaboration with Scorsese after Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Johnson and Blunt have previously worked together in Jungle Cruise and Smashing Machine. The latter is expected to see Johnson in a relatively performance-heavy role, unlike the blockbuster-friendly kind he did earlier. Blunt recently got raves for her performance in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.
