Netflix dropped an announcement video during the Oscars for The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s high-budget mafia movie. Featuring a few cryptic lines, fancy graphics, but no images, this is mostly just here to tell you Martin Scorsese’s making a new mafia movie, which really should be all you need to know. Martin Scorsese’s one of Hollywood’s most legendary directors and screenwriter Steven Zaillian also has an impressive resume, including writing Schindler’s List and creating HBO’s The Night Of. The film’s cast is equally impressive, beginning with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. They both previously starred in The Godfather Part II, though they didn’t interact onscreen until the film Heat. Co-starring are their fellow Oscar winners Joe Pesci and Anna Paquin, alongside Harvey Keitel, who was nominated, plus Bobby Cannavale and Ray Romano, who must settle for mere critical acclaim.
The film’s based on true events, namely the mysterious death of Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), a labor union leader drawn into organized crime, and the account of the man who claimed to kill him (De Niro). Both Scorsese and half the cast are most famous for crime dramas like Goodfellas, so this is a return to their roots. And while the video promises a theatrical release, The Irishman’s also another coup for Netflix on the heels of Roma winning 3 Oscars: It’s hard to imagine a new film sounding more like old-school Hollywood than this one, but it comes via the company disrupting Hollywood’s old way of business. Certainly, this teaser sells the film almost entirely on star power and nostalgia for classic crime dramas. We’ll see this fall if that can make the sale in 2019, or if the game’s changed more than even Netflix knows.
Here, the official announcement of The Irishman:
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