There have been many movies filmed in Grand Rapids, but possibly the most memorable one may have been 'Hardcore' back in 1979, staring George C. Scott.
When Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro aren’t busy trying to figure out ways to digitally de-age the latter in Netflix movies about professional hitmen, they do field offers from other studios. That seems to be the case now with Imperative Entertainment, the production house that recently snapped up the rights for David Grann’s non-fiction novel Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI. After spending a whopping $5 million dollars for the rights, Imperative immediately pivoted into convincing the two Hollywood stars — and their frequent collaborator Leonard DiCaprio — to accept the project on their behalf.
Like most cinephiles, I was vaguely aware that Joe Pesci has been retired from acting for a while now, but I assumed that meant he had made a few low-budget movies in the early 2000s and walked away. Imagine my surprise, then, when I realized that Pesci has made exactly two live-action movies since Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998. One was The Good Shepherd, the Robert De Niro-directed 2006 drama about the early history of the CIA. And if a close friend can lure Joe Pesci out of retirement once, maybe he can do it again.
There’s an old adage that once a filmmaker reaches a certain point in his or her career, they become incapable of delivering a movie with a running time of three hours. This has become increasingly true of directors who work in both art films and superhero adaptations. I’d wager that most of us don’t spend time worrying about whether our favorite horror film or Disney musical will crack the 180 minute mark, but if the movie stars Batman or was directed by Martin Scorsese? Then yeah, it’s a legitimate concern.