So just how busy is Martin Scorsese at any given moment? Well, here’s a taste: he’s currently in post-production on his next feature, “The Wolf Of Wall Street,” he’s producing a documentary about the late Roger Ebert, working on a movie project about the New York Review Of Books, developing a TV series based on “Gangs Of New York,” executive producing new films for Luc Besson and Andrew Lau, and he also signed up to direct a documentary about Bill Clinton for HBO. And this is all stuff that happened in 2013. So is it a surprise that something that cropped up in 2011 might not be happening?
Way back then you’ll remember that Scorsese had put an adaptation of Jo Nesbø‘s serial killer novel “The Snowman” on his plate, but alas, it seems it’s not to be. Norwegian paper Afterposten reports (via News And Views From Norway) the lengthy waiting period for Scorsese has caused producers to start looking at other directors to take it on. Baltasar Kormakur (“Contraband“) and Morten Tyldum (who directed an adaptation of Nesbø’s “Headhunters“) were both offered the job, and they both turned it down.
“I don’t think Scorsese will make this film,” Kormakur said to the paper. Complicating matters somewhat is that Nesbø’s contract with the producers gives him some say in who will get the gig, but he seems to open to suggestions. “They’re impatient and see that it will take time to wait for Scorsese,” Nesbø said about the whole process. “What they’re doing now is more a sign that Universal would like to show us some alternatives.”
Still, he remains hopeful that somehow Scorsese can fit it in. “We hoped, and still hope, that we could cut into the queue,” the author said.
The plot of “The Snowman” centers on Hole, a hard-living detective who doesn’t play by the rules, who investigates a spate of women found murdered with the titular snowmen left at the scene. “The Kingdom” and “World War Z” writer Matthew Michael Carnahan has penned the script, and it sounds firmly in the “Shutter Island“-esque B-movie vein Scorsese sometimes goes to. But as you can tell, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to to take it on. Any suggestions for who might be a good fit for this material?
In the meantime, the forever-developing and lawsuit-plagued “Silence” is supposed to be Scorsese’s next film but we’ve heard that so often, we’re not gonna believe it until cameras are rolling.