The Departed 2: the sequel that angered Martin Scorsese
The filmmaker explains why he let go of Warner Bros. who wanted to make his film a franchise.
In an offensive widely taken up by the media around the world against current cinema culture, Martin Scorsese expressed his rejection of superhero films and more generally of film franchises, which had become the studios’ obsession.
In this same interview with GQ, the director says that he fell out with the leaders of the Warner Bros. studio. who wanted to do The Departed 2 and transform his 2006 film – adaptation of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs – into a franchise. To do this, it was necessary to completely modify the end of The Departed !
Warner Bros. wanted one of the two main characters – Billy Costigan Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) or Colin Sullivan (played by Matt Damon) to survive in order to make a sequel to the Infiltrators with one or the other. The studio asked Scorsese to change his ending. A request that upset the director.
“What they wanted was frankness. It wasn’t about a moral question, about the life or death of this character.”
Annoyed, Martin Scorsese decided to keep its original ending with the deaths of Costigan and Sullivan. After the test screening, the audience was “delighted” of the final bloodbath, according to the filmmaker. But the people at the studio, much less so:
“The studio guys left the screening and they were very sad, because they just didn’t want this movie. What they wanted was a franchise. Which meant I couldn’t anymore working with them from now on…”
After having done Aviator And Infiltrators with Warner Bros., Martin Scorsese It was then sought financing from independent production companies, most often being distributed by Paramount. Then he went to Netflix to The Irishman and recently Apple Studios for Killers of the Flower Moon which will be released in theaters on October 18.
