Altering an initial platform-release plan, Apple Original Films will instead launch the Cannes Film Festival hit Killers of the Flower Moon to a wide global theatrical release October 20. Apple is partnered with Paramount Pictures on the theatrical release. This before the Martin Scorsese-directed film that stars Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone gets an Apple TV+ berth. That timing is undetermined at the moment, but it will surely be in the heat of awards season.
Apple originally intended to release the film limited October 6, but the wide global launch certainly favored both Barbie and Oppenheimer this summer. It was not disclosed how many screens worldwide, and it is not out of the realm of possibility that the film could play one of the fall festivals. A run on Imax is also part of the plan.
Directed by Scorsese and written for the screen by Eric Roth and Scorsese, the fact-based Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s bestselling book. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, it depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Jesse Plemons, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion and Tantoo Cardinal also star.
Pic was produced by Apple alongside Imperative Entertainment, Sikelia Productions and Appian Way. Scorsese, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas and Daniel Lupi are the lead producers, with DiCaprio, Rick Yorn, Adam Somner, Marianne Bower, Lisa Frechette, John Atwood, Shea Kammer and Niels Juul serving as executive producers.
Here’s the new poster that dropped today: