The Studio Wanted Martin Scorsese To Keep A Few Characters Alive For A Departed Sequel
"The Departed" is famously a feel-good story where all the major players make it out okay in the end, naturally setting up an entire universe of spin-offs and sequels and streaming shows for content-starved audiences eager for the next major franchise. Wait, stand by, some additional information is coming through right now. Okay, right, it turns out all of that is utter nonsense and only some of the most corporate-minded studio executives in the entire business would ever think otherwise. So, of course, that's exactly what director Martin Scorsese had to put up with during production of his epic 2006 crime thriller.
In an extensive profile over at GQ (via Entertainment Weekly), another batch of Scorsese remarks have — once again — taken the internet by storm. But rather than get stuck in the weeds about his seemingly inflammatory perspective on superhero movies (we've been there and done that, folks, and time has only proven even further that he remains 100% correct), there's another eye-opening detail that perhaps best explains where the aged but no less vital filmmaker is coming from. It has to do with the harebrained idea to turn "The Departed," of all movies, into a franchise, believe it or not.
In a section of the interview exploring Scorsese's well-documented struggles to acquire funding for his original passion projects throughout his career, discussion turned to his unique challenges making "The Departed." Fans of the Oscar-winning classic will remember that (spoiler alert!) pretty much everybody dies by the end in a mishmash of conflicting loyalties, deceptions, and selfish motivations. But, apparently, the rat-heavy and unambiguously conclusive ending didn't sit well with Warner Bros. executives who wanted a sequel. We've previously written about such sequel plans, but this would've been on another misguided level entirely.
'They just didn't want that movie. They wanted the franchise'
In the GQ article, Scorsese details a particular low point while making "The Departed" — one that feels like an eerily prescient example of just how much studios would go on to flood the marketplace with nothing but franchise-friendly pictures. By the end of the film, the undercover operatives on two opposing sides, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), end up violently killed through a series of double-crosses and shocking turns. Such a dark climax certainly fit with what Scorsese was going for, but not quite with the dreams of studio executives. Why? Because they wanted either Damon or DiCaprio's characters to live to fight another day and in another movie down the line.
Scorsese recalls a test screening that left everybody happy — except for those pesky bean counters. "What they wanted was a franchise. It wasn't about a moral issue of a person living or dying," he said, adding:
"And then the studio guys walked out [of the test screening] and they were very sad, because they just didn't want that movie. They wanted the franchise. Which means: I can't work here any more."
You know what? If I were an acclaimed, visionary filmmaker and money-grubbing studios had historically given me nothing but grief over every non-IP project I tried to sneak into a system that's increasingly hostile to that very idea ... I'd probably feel pretty cynical about the state of things these days, too. It's no wonder he's come to feel completely alienated from the industry which he made his home for so long, but that's why it's even more crucial to appreciate and support upcoming movies like "Killers of the Flower Moon." Sometimes, we don't know how good we had it until it's gone.