Martin Scorsese Agrees to First-Look Deal With Apple
Written by SOURCE on August 11, 2020
A week after Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production company came to an agreement on a first-look deal with Apple, frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese‘s production company has done the same.
Deadline reports that the ink is dry on a first-look deal between the Oscar-winning filmmaker and the streamer, specifying that Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions will be based at Apple as part of a multi-year deal that, like DiCaprio’s deal, will include film and TV projects.
Note that this agreement comes two-and-a-half months after Apple ponied up a lot of money to produce and distribute the Scorsese-DiCaprio film Killers of the Flower Moon. That adaption of the non-fiction book will star DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, and was won at auction by Apple for $180+ million. Paramount will release the film in theaters, and Apple will stream it, though it currently sits in pre-production (filming is currently scheduled to start up in February).
Prior to joining with Apple, Sikelia Productions had been docked at Paramount. The production company was established by Scorsese in 2003, and a four-year deal signed in 2015 extended the run with their now-previous partner. Sikelia is responsible for all Scorsese’s projects dating back quite awhile, including: The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, and the series Boardwalk Empire, among lots of others.
The deal is just the latest example of Apple combining with a big name to, well, let’s be honest, get people to actually sign-up and watch. As we wrote a week ago, they’ve also recently reached business agreements with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Justin Lin, Idris Elba, Kerry Ehrin, Jason Katims, and Oprah Winfrey.
