Find out why director Martin Scorsese nearly quit acting after filming “Aviator,” his Howard Hughes biopic.
Sometimes a shoot leaves a director so tired that he thinks he’s giving up his job. This was the case on Aviator, which left Martin Scorsese so stressed that he said he was ready to hang up the camera! Explanations.
Aviator tells the story of billionaire and adventurer Howard Hughes over a period of 20 years. Played by Leonardo DiCaprio, this very real character has done everything in his life, from movie studio boss to producer to airplane pilot ahead of his time and industrialist.
Very ambitious, this shoot experienced overruns for which Martin Scorsese paid out of his own pocket a sum estimated at $500,000 but goes otherwise without major problem. Except that behind the scenes, Warner Bros has a problem.
Miramax
Aviator is slated for release around Christmas, close enough to the February Oscars to keep the film in the minds of Academy voters.
Except that in December, Warner’s schedule is already full of one film per week with Blade Trinity (December 8), Ocean’s Twelve (December 10), Million Dollar Baby (December 15), A Long Engagement Sunday ( December 17) and the remake The Phantom of the Opera (December 22).
JACOVIDES-MOREAU / BESTIMAGE
Martin Scorsese
This is why in April 2004, Warner turns to the firm Miramax. It is the latter which will release the film under its banner, which costs 50% of the American income from the film to Warner. Miramax also won the rights to broadcast the film on American television, and Warner retained those for video on demand and the physical edition.
Having two different studios involved in the release and editing of Aviator drove Martin Scorsese to the brink of a nervous breakdown, as echoed in the New York Times in 2020:
The last two weeks of editing and mixing The Aviator, I said to myself: ‘if this is how films are supposed to be made, I will never make them again’. It’s like being in a bunker and being shot at from all directions. You start to realize that you don’t speak the same language anymore, and you can’t make movies anymore.
Martin Scorsese will still see his copy again by releasing seven feature films thereafter, not counting documentaries or pilots for TV (Vinyl, Boardwalk Empire). Over the years, however, he will realize that traditional funding is difficult to find, which will lead him to turn to platforms for two of them: The Irishman (Netflix) and Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple) .
The latter, presented at the last Cannes Film Festival, will be released on our screens via Paramount France on October 18: