Martin Scorsese has issues with studio filmmaking and their obsession with franchises. In an interview with GQ, Scorsese explained how the studio heads at Warner Bros. tried to change the ending of The Departed.
Why Did Warner Bros. Martin Scorsese To Make The Departed Into a Franchise?
Warner Bros. wanted one of the two lead characters – Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan Jr. or Matt Damon’s Colin Sullivan – to survive so that The Departed could be turned into a franchise. The studio asked Scorsese to change the ending, a suggestion that upset the director.
“What they wanted was a franchise,” Scorsese said. “It wasn’t about a moral issue of a person living or dying.”
Scorsese decided to keep the original ending with the deaths of Costigan and Sullivan. At a test screening, Scorsese said the audience walked out of the screening “ecstatic” after witnessing the film’s deadly ending. However, Warner Bros. had a more somber reaction.
“And then the studio guys walked out and they were very sad, because they just didn’t want that movie,” Scorsese said. “They wanted the franchise. Which means: I can’t work here anymore.”
The Departed was a critical and commercial hit, with the film finding itself on many top 10 lists of 2006. On a budget of $90 million, The Departed grossed $291 million worldwide. Nominated for five Oscars, The Departed won four, including Best Picture and Best Director, the first of Scorsese’s illustrious career.
Scorsese’s next film, Killers of the Flower Moon, depicts the events surrounding the Osage Nation murders in Oklahoma in the 1920s. The film stars DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Tantoo Cardinal, and Brendan Fraser. Killers of the Flower Moon will be released in theaters on October 20, 2023.
