Martin Scorsese may be executive producing the buzzy “Cape Fear” series adaptation, but the auteur is actually looking to get wet with a different seaside project: a Hawaii-set true crime mob drama starring Dwayne Johnson.
Deadline first reported the yet-untitled film. IndieWire can confirm from a source close to the project that Johnson and his frequent collaborator Emily Blunt approached Scorsese with the feature, who then brought in actor/producer Leonardo DiCaprio. The script is being commissioned by Nick Bilton, who produced HBO documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.”
The drama is set to star Johnson as a real-life aspiring mob boss who battled rival crime clans to control the Hawaiian islands in the 1960s. Scorsese, Johnson, Blunt, DiCaprio, and Bilton will all executive produce, along with Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette, and Rick Yorn.
Blunt and Johnson have worked together on “Jungle Cruise” and will co-star in Benny Safdie’s WWE biopic “Smashing Machine.” Johnson is portraying MMA fighter Mark Kerr in the upcoming A24 film, and teased to GQ that he hopes to work with Safdie or A24 again soon.
“It’s such a psychological thing here,” Johnson said. “But you know, from the moment I walk out of my house, I can’t hide. But in a way, when I could disappear in a movie like ‘Smashing Machine,’ and some of the other things now that we’re developing, where it will allow me to disappear, with a Benny again or an A24… Man, I love it.”
And while a Johnson-Scorsese project seems like a shock, Johnson joked in a 2017 GQ spoof video that he would star in “Goodfellas 2.”
Meanwhile, Scorsese has a slew of other films in the works. The long-awaited “Devil in the White City” feature has been re-confirmed, this time at 20th Century, with Scorsese directing and DiCaprio starring. The project was previously re-tooled as a limited series, with Scorsese and DiCaprio executive producing and Todd Field directing with Keanu Reeves in the lead role. That iteration of the project was scrapped by Hulu in 2023.
The auteur has also been working to independently finance an adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s “The Life of Jesus,” which he initially planned to shoot in 2024. His Frank Sinatra biopic, rumored to star DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, was additionally shelved.
