Martin Scorsese Was Writing ‘Flower Moon’ for Two Years When DiCaprio Asked for Script Overhaul, Says ‘Midsommar’ and ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Inspired Pacing: ‘Going a Little Slower’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have been quite open in interviews when discussing the massive “Killers of the Flower Moon” script overhaul that took place during the film’s development.

In a new interview with The Irish Times, the director revealed that he and co-writer Eric Roth had been working on the “Flower Moon” script for two whole years when DiCaprio took issue with the approach. “Myself and [my co-screenwriter] Eric Roth talked about telling the story from the point of view of the bureau agents coming in to investigate,” Scorsese said. “After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, ‘Where is the heart of this story?’ I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s the story.’ The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.” Scorsese and Roth’s “Flower Moon” script is based on David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name, which tells the story of the FBI’s early days as agents investigate a string of murders among the Osage Nation in the 1920s.

In the original script, the film was told from the POV of the lead FBI agent on the case, Tom White. DiCaprio intended to play White, until he had a change of heart about the film’s direction.

The overhauled script changed the perspective of the film to inside of the Osage community, with DiCaprio now playing Ernest Burkhart, a World War I veteran who is pulled into his uncle’s greedy plot to rob the Osage Nation of its wealth.