Martin Scorsese Worked to Get Financing for 'The Irishman' for Ten Years | Director Roundtable - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Martin Scorsese, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Fernando Meirelles, Lulu Wang and Todd Phillips joined for the annual director roundtable.

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00:00what has changed most significantly for good and bad what has changed for good

00:09or bad where would you begin how could you begin I mean basically well you

00:15could take the Irishman for nine years we couldn't get financing or something

00:19that De Niro and I hadn't made a picture since 1995 casino and over the years we

00:26wanted to make another film and then we never kind of met on certain subject

00:30matter and things changed you know life goes on and we looked around and we're

00:36still interested in working with each other long story bottom line is that we

00:39get to be 72 73 74 years old and he comes up with this book that Eric Roth gave him

00:46describes the character to me becomes extremely passionate and somewhat

00:50emotional about it and I said well that might be it and then I read the book and

00:54I said this is what we'll do that was 2009 got Steve's alien involved worked out

00:59the structure worked everything out and really couldn't get the financing with

01:05him and Al and Joe could not get the financing so he went off did his work I

01:09went off and did some films and when the time came around any possibility of them

01:15playing younger was out of the question it was gone gone so we looked at each other

01:21so I wind up I want to shoot silence I had to go and make silence you know and so

01:25that's when Pablo Hellman mentioned the deep the de-aging the euthification which

01:31is something we heard about but it was almost like science fiction you know by

01:35the time we did the test after shooting silence we did a test of De Niro doing

01:39good for a scene in Goodfellas and we did it again and we played it back two

01:43months later and we said let's take the risk let's try for it but of course that

01:47comes with a price tag right you know then it was even more money in terms of

01:53the the budget in terms of that so ultimately what happened was that we

01:57still after we still could not get a picture financed and I got a call from

02:03Ricky on said are you interested in Netflix and I said what's the story there and

02:06explained it financially the film would be complete backing willing to take the

02:14risks with the computer generated imagery or you call it that but you know it's

02:20more complicated and certainly the main thing for me was creative freedom the

02:24trade-off is that it's a streamer okay however I said but it will be shown in

02:29theaters right by that point you know I've been at this like 47 years yeah so

02:33at that point I've had a few films I mentioned this the other day I've had a

02:36few films play one or two weeks in the theater and taken out right yeah including

02:41especially king of comedy right yeah the last of the week and a half they

02:46took it out is that you've never shown again you know

02:53you did not go ahead and produce Joker your partner Emma is the producer on it

02:58why did you decide not to produce personal reasons I think for me also

03:02scheduling I mean quite honestly taxi driver and king of comedy and last

03:08you know my time those were my fights yes taxi driver wasn't a fight we did it

03:15and then there were some consequences to be paid at this point in time then we

03:20went ahead and did king of comedy and we were attacked for that and the film was

03:24considered the flop of the year and the new show entertainment tonight oh god on

03:29New Year's Eve I was putting my tie on and I'd look over in this TV and said now the

03:33flop of the year and a curtain open it was king of comedy and everything had

03:39turned the whole the whole all of Hollywood had turned against that kind of

03:42filmmaking really other reasons too do you think in a funny way because I mean I

03:46think we all romanticize sort of you know well the set that this sort of you

03:50know you're the 70s and even early 80s perhaps in a funny way do you think king of

03:56comedy would have done better 15 years later with independent studios because they

04:01wouldn't it wouldn't it would have been like a 24 these companies would have

04:05known what to do exactly however 1978 79 79 apocalypse now right at UA then

04:12Raging Bull 1980 ten days later Heaven's Gate opens up it was the end I'm not

04:18saying Heaven's Gate is a bad film I'm just saying they finished this off they had

04:21enough of these crazed or tours and everybody including the the critical

04:27community particularly the New York Times one review the film closed

04:31one night so that was the end of it all then you had other films that were being

04:35made that were you know wonderful sci-fi fantasy things and people wanted to see

04:40those we go ahead and make King of Comedy we just made Raging Bull so when

04:43people went to see if they expected De Niro as Jake LaMotta again and that

04:48changed things you see yeah and at that point also the studio had changed right so

04:54they said so I'm doing it yeah yeah gone picture finish so I went I try to do

04:58last temptation of Christ it was 1983 I spent the whole year here and six

05:03weeks before shooting started it was cancelled at which point I said I think

05:07I should leave you had death threats when you did last yes yes I don't go

05:14through a fight did you mean you didn't want to go through that again with Joker

05:17or you didn't know it's an issue it's a personal issue about the kind of picture

05:21I want to make at this point in my life I want to I'm more comfortable with this

05:25picture Irish men I'm more comfortable there you know

Martin Scorsese Worked to Get Financing for 'The Irishman' for Ten Years | Director Roundtable

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