Chronicles Investigations Into The Osage Murders Of The 1920s
The Irishman director Martin Scorsese will shoot his Native American drama Killers Of The Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, in Oklahoma next Spring and Summer.
Paramount Pictures is backing the movie, and it’s based on the critically-acclaimed true crime book about the 1920s Osage reign of terror in which tribal members were murdered for their oil rights, and the subsequent FBI investigation.
“After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.”
“Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.”
“As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.”
Scorsese’s cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who worked on The Irishman, says he’s already gearing up to film Scorsese’s next movie as well. Prieto added:
“Right now I’m in the process of researching different ways of shooting it so we still have to actually meet, and I’ll show him images, propose ideas. He’ll probably have his thoughts too, but we still haven’t figured [out the tone of the film]. So, on the way.”
Scorsese had promised Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and other Osage Nation representatives that the film would shoot in Oklahoma. And right now, the production team is conducting open casting calls for Osage and other Native men and women to appear in the film as speaking actors or background extras.
