Even though the projects are still in the preparation phase, we know quite a lot about both of them. It is true that we will have to wait a while to see if the musician's biography will actually be written, as it needs a green light from the singer's daughter – Tina Sinatra, who manages his image. However, we now know who will play the two main characters. Leonardo DiCaprio will portray Frank Sinatra, and his second wife, Ava Gardner, will be portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence. The actors have already had the opportunity to work together in the film “Don't Look Up” (Adam McKay, 2021), and DiCaprio himself has recently been really loved by the director and is involved in almost every of his new projects.
There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule, one of them is another novelty that Scorsese is preparing: “A Life of Jesus”. Here we will not see this Hollywood star, but instead of him Andrew Garfield and Miles Teller will star in the film. The choice of the former should not be surprising, because it is not the first time when an award-winning creator decides on a similar exchange. This situation occurred in the case of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Silence”. In the first work, the role of a degenerate and money-hungry broker is played by the expressive and sometimes even exaggerated DiCaprio, while in the second production, Garfield is practically stripped of any means of expression, and all the gestures at his disposal are reduced to the absolute minimum.
These two films are also a good example of how great Scorsese is at jumping between such different styles, and there is a chance that these new productions will prove to be of high quality in both cases. In The Los Angeles Times, the director says about “A Life of Jesus” in this way: “It will be a story about the basic teachings of Jesus, exploring their principles, but not trying to convert. I would like to find new and more accessible ways to tell this story, removing the negative associations associated with organized religion.“The announced length (80 minutes) indeed indicates that this production may be more attractive to a wider audience, but at the same time it is a departure from what the creator has recently accustomed us to, filming epic stories often lasting almost three hours.
However, this is not the end of these two films, “Roosevelt” and “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder” are also in preparation. Scorsese intends to direct both of them and both will star Leonardo DiCaprio. Despite his age, the director is not thinking about artistic retirement, as long as the quality of his films keeps up with his almost youthful verve.
See also: Quentin Tarantino abandons “The Movie Critic”. This was supposed to be his last film