Martin Scorsese Brings ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ First-Look to CinemaCon

Martin Scorsese wowed the crowd at CineamCon on Thursday when sharing a first look at his upcoming opus Killers of the Flower Moon.

He received perhaps the biggest and most sustained applause of anyone at CinemaCon when he walked onstage, having to quiet the crowd.

“This is a big-screen movie, and that’s what we made,” said Scorsese of the film. “I could only have made this picture with collaborators who are remarkable and who are totally dedicated to bring this story to life on an epic scale. I needed actors brave enough to play complicated characters.”

From Apple Original Films and Paramount, the Western crime drama stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. In a defining moment for Apple’s foray into theatrical, the movie will receive an exclusive release in cinemas around the globe, opening in select theaters on Oct. 6 before expanding nationwide on Oct. 20. The movie will later debut on streamer Apple TV+. Apple is also partnering with Sony for a theatrical release of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.

Flower Moon reunites Scorsese with DiCaprio and De Niro and, as the filmmaker noted, it’s the first time he’s directed both of them in the same feature. The movie — sporting a running time of three hours and 26 minutes — will make its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

“I would like to thank the entire Osage Nation,” said Scorsese, who also thanked Paramount and Apple Films, who “are real believers in cinema.”

The footage had Scorsese’s trademark beat and swagger, with violence, period costumes and a few laughs courtesy of Jesse Plemons’ deadpan Washington, D.C., detective.

The film, which Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth adapted from David Grann’s best-selling 2017 nonfiction book, centers on an FBI investigation of a series of murders of the Osage people that took place in Oklahoma in the early 1920s. It became known as the Reign of Terror after oil was discovered on tribal land.

DiCaprio, in his sixth teaming with Scorsese, plays Ernest Burkhart, the nephew of cattleman William Hale (De Niro). Gladstone, who is of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu heritage and first broke out in Kelly Reichardt’s 2017 film Certain Women, plays Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman who has inherited an oil fortune. The cast also includes Plemons as Tom White, a former Texas Ranger investigating the murders, as well as Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion and Tantoo Cardinal. 

“When this director is inspired by true stories, think about the results,” said Paramount film boss Brian Robbins. “We are in Vegas, so let’s start with Casino. Raging Bull. The Aviator. The Irishman. Goodfellas. The list goes on and on. All of them classics.”