Martin Scorsese has revealed he has “more films left in him” and won’t be bidding farewell to the silver screen anytime soon, or at all.
The acclaimed director behind classics like Mean Streets, Wolf of Wall Street and Killers of the Flower Moon put to rest rumours that he was retiring during an appearance at a press conference held in Turin’s Museum of Cinema. Per The Hollywood Reporter, he said: “I’m not saying goodbye to cinema at all. I still have more films to make, and I hope God gives me the strength to make them.”
Scorsese has long been the very definition of cinema, redefining what it could do and be with his early work before continuing to reshape himself in an ever evolving industry so it’s comforting to hear that he has no intention of stopping anytime soon. But what exactly has the prolific filmmaker got on his plate? Here is everything that we know.
What Martin Scorsese is working on next
Scorsese has a number of projects in the pipeline including a biopic about Frank Sinatra, a movie titled A Life of Jesus, and a movie about President Theodore Roosevelt. What he is currently working on, though, is a documentary in Italy.
Speaking at the museum, the Gangs of New York director said: “I’m filming between Ustica and Taormina. It’s a documentary about marine archaeology. I saw an amphora [an ancient Greek or Roman jar] pulled from the sea, and it moved me deeply.”
The film explores the work of research project Shipwreck of Sicily, led by British archaeologist Lisa Briggs, who has been able to reconstruct the stories of ancient ships, sailors and cargo based on DNA analysis of old shipwreck sites. The documentary is co-produced by the Sicilian region and will also see the director film at the Selinunte Archaeological Park, the Museum of the Dancing Satyr, and the Salinas Archaeological Museum.
Scorsese’s film will be similar to another project on his plate, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder. The drama, which is expected to star his regular collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio follows the fight for survival of a captain and his crew after their British naval ship is wrecked on a desolate island.
Read more: What we know about Martin Scorsese’s new movie The Wager
The movie was first announced in 2023 and is another collaboration between Scorsese, DiCaprio and Apple Original Films who worked with the pair on the Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon.
It isn’t clear which project Scorsese will move onto next after his documentary, as had planned to shoot his Sinatra bipoic and film about Jesus back-to-back however these have now been postponed. Per a report from Variety, filming on the Sinatra biopic have been cancelled but not yet rescheduled.
The film, which Scorsese has been trying to get off the ground for years, has come across some issues in recent weeks as Sinatra’s family need to approve it for things to go ahead, and the general understand is… they don’t. The biopic is said to centre on Sinatra’s tumultuous marriage to actress Ava Gardner, which resulted in his split from his daughter Tina’s mother Nancy Barbato, and as a result isn’t what his daughter is looking for.
Scorsese previously told the Toronto Sun in 2017: “Certain things are very difficult for a family, and I totally understand. But, if they expect me to be doing it, they can’t hold back certain things. The problem is that the man was so complex. Everybody is so complex – but Sinatra in particular.”
The director has revived the film, but it has been put on ice again for the moment. While this is the case, Scorsese still has other projects that he is working on.
Not counting the many TV shows and films he is producing such as The Devil in the White City, the director is also said to be considering a Gangs of New York TV series, which was first announced in 2022. The filmmaker’s next release will be a documentary about the legendary cast of SCTV, who will reunite for a TV special titled An Afternoon with SCTV that Scorsese has directed.
So we can attest that, much like the filmmaker said, there is a lot still to come from Scorsese and we will no doubt know soon which project he decides to pick up next after his latest documentary.
