We knew that Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” would be a player in the fall film festivals this year. However, after the announcement of the World Premiere at the New York Film Festival, there hasn’t been word on where fans might be able to see the film before it makes its inevitable theatrical and Netflix run. That is, until now.
According to ScreenDaily, the BFI London Film Festival will screen “The Irishman” as the event’s closing night film on October 13. This marks the film’s first official event outside of North America and will allow European film festival folks the opportunity to see one of the most highly-anticipated films of the year.
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“This picture was many years in the making,” said Scorsese. “It’s a project that Robert De Niro and I started talking about a long time ago, and we wanted to make it the way it needed to be made. It’s also a picture that all of us could only have made at this point in our lives.”
Obviously, the film is a crime epic that stars De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. “The Irishman” follows the story of the title character, a hitman that has found himself in the middle of some major historical events, while working for the mob. But perhaps the film has found more headlines due to its CGI used to de-age the legendary cast than it has from the story itself. Scorsese is said to have spent an insane amount on CGI for this crime film, ballooning the film up to a reported $200 million production budget.
The film is being released theatrically by Netflix before it launches on the streaming service. However, we still don’t know how long it’ll play in theaters, how wide it’ll be released, or if it will be shown in any specific formats. But we are assuming all this will happen before the end of 2019, as “The Irishman” is expected to be a major awards player this year.