Martin Scorsese has wholeheartedly embraced the unstoppable rise of the streaming service, presumably because subscription-based platforms appear to be much more willing than the traditional studios to hand him the hefty budgets required for his latest project.
Having followed up $160 million Netflix passion project The Irishman with $200 million AppleTV+ literary adaptation Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese is stripping things back for his next feature, although he’s remaining in business with Apple. As per Deadline, the cinema legend will next be helming a biopic of the Grateful Dead, with Jonah Hill set to star as Jerry Garcia and serve as one of the producers.
The last time the duo collaborated, Hill landed an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in The Wolf of Wall Street, so we can expect this one to gather similar levels of acclaim. A known encyclopedia of musical knowledge, Scorsese will no doubt be diving deep into the Grateful Dead archives to deliver a no-holds-barred look at one of the biggest groups on the planet during the peak counter-culture years.
Scorsese has overseen a number of music documentaries during his career, but a relatively straightforward biopic of a major act is fairly new territory, once again showcasing his desire to keep trying new things even after almost half a century at the top of the Hollywood directorial totem pole.