Martin Scorsese has "no intention of retiring" after Sinatra, Jesus delays 

The esteemed filmmaker still has some more in the tank

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  October 7, 2024 | 5:05pm
Photo by Stefano Guidi (Getty Images)
Film News Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese has

Martin Scorsese is 81 years old. But don’t tell his IMDb page that. The director has five movies listed as “upcoming,” including A Life Of Jesus and The Wager, an adaptation of the shipwreck best-seller by Flower Moon scribe David Grann. The list also features a Gangs Of New York TV series, a Teddy Roosevelt movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio announced in 2017, and an SCTV reunion special, which we desperately want but has yet to materialize. The movie Scorsese is closest to making, Sinatra, isn’t even listed. However, over the last two weeks, both productions Scorsese expected to shoot this year—Jesus and Sinatra—were delayed indefinitely, causing some to believe that the filmmaker was planning to retire, apparently.

Per World Of Reel, Scorsese told the press conference at the Cinema Museum in Torino, Italy, where he accepted the Premio Della Mole Award, that he has “no intention of retiring.” The director also updated the press on the projects, saying that “Frank Sinatra is only postponed” and “the one about Jesus, I am working on. I hope God gives me the strength and money to finish them.” We’re leaving this one to the big guy.

IMDb is far from an authority on these kinds of updates, but, indeed, Scorsese has many irons in the fire and energy to spare. His last two features, The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon, were both three-and-a-half-hour period epics. Sinatra and Jesus will probably fall into that bucket, too. Based on the source material, we can only imagine how difficult and expensive a water-based movie like The Wager would be to complete. How many more movies like that could Scorsese possibly have in him? If you ask him, he has at least two or, perhaps, even more than that. World Of Reel also reports that Scorsese has other movies in the works: an adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s 2004 novel, Home, and a shipwreck documentary that started filming last week. When Scorsese is done, he’ll let us know.

 
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