There was never any question that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio would re-team for a fourth collaboration; what’s surprising, though, is that it’s not called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt or The Wolf of Wall Street.
And while no one was expecting the duo to come together for an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, it makes perfect sense that the Catholic-raised director would gravitate toward an author whose books are soaked in Catholic guilt – and set in Boston, which, in terms of Oscars and box office success, has been luckier for Marty than his old New York City stomping grounds. I’m not suggesting this is a good thing.
DiCaprio will star as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels in the 1954-set thriller about the disappearance of a female patient from the titular island’s hospital for the criminally insane. The woman, a multiple murderess, is presumed to be hiding out somewhere on island, which would typically make things a little easier for the Marshal; unfortunately, there’s a vicious hurricane headed straight for the Massachusetts coast.
This surface similarity to the climactic hullabaloo of Key Largo might be as big a draw for Scorsese as Lehane’s Catholicism, though Cape Fear kinda had the third act natural disaster element going for it, too. Maybe Scorsese just likes the intense depiction of very bad weather. Hopefully, that’s the only thing he has in common with Jan de Bont.
Shutter Island is scheduled to begin principal photography next March, and will be a Paramount/Columbia Pictures co-production. Battle Angel‘s (and Pathfinder‘s) Laeta Kalogridis wrote the screenplay. I think I know what Bill Monahan’ll be up to over the coming month.