On the occasion of the broadcast, this Monday evening on Arte, of “Taxi Driver”, we come back to this idea of a sequel mentioned for a time by Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader.
There’s so much to say about Martin Scorsese’s classic Taxi Driver. Like this legend according to which the filmmaker would have come very close to killing the producer of the film. Or the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio is an absolute fan of the work, and in particular of a very specific scene.
On the occasion of the broadcast of the feature film, we chose to look at the sequel to Taxi Driver. Yes, yes, next! Because this Taxi Driver 2 which ultimately never saw the light of day was indeed for a time mentioned by Scorsese with its screenwriter Paul Schrader and its main actor Robert De Niro.
What could the sequel to Taxi Driver have looked like? “I would like to know where Travis would be today”said Robert De Niro at the microphone of the Guardian in 2013. “There was something about this guy, with all the rage and alienation that a city can cause. Marty and I are from New York and you can feel alienated.”
A few years later, invited to the Marrakech Festival, De Niro confirmed that discussions had indeed taken place about a new Taxi Driver. “We talked about it with Marty and Paul Schrader came up with something”dropped the American actor at the microphone of Collider. “But it never worked. I think there might be something interesting to tell about what happened to him, but we never found what would work.”
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In 2019, the Hollywood star finally told GQ that a Taxi Driver 2 could not be done “only if you have something special that speaks to our time and adds something to the original film.” Since then, not a word…
Things therefore seem quite clear if we trust the words of Robert De Niro and the silence adopted on the subject for several years: the nocturnal peregrinations of Travis Bickle in the streets of New York should not be back on the big screen . But fans of the actor and Scorsese rejoice: the feature film Killers of the Flower Moon, a new collaboration from the iconic duo, will be released in theaters on October 18.
Did you notice the cameos with Martin Scorsese?