With the Cannes Film Festival in full flow, the world premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon is upon us. Martin Scorsese’s next Western crime drama could be the biggest Apple TV Plus film release yet and, with an all-star cast to match, could very well lead to Apple’s next big haul at the Academy Awards.
Now that we’ve seen the first official trailer and have more information about what to expect from one of the world’s most renowned directors, here are five things you should know about Killers of the Flower Moon.
What is Killers of the Flower Moon about?
Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the best-selling book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grenn. The book, released in 2017, centers around a series of Native Americans in Oklahoma during the 1920s after the discovery of oil on Osage Nation land.
Like many of Scorsese’s classics, we can expect a cat-and-mouse chase as FBI agents try to bring justice to the murders as corruption and wealth plays a starring role.
Who stars in Killers of the Flower Moon?
Killers of the Flower Moon has a $200 million budget and a star-studded cast to match. Scorsese loves to work with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, the film being the seventh collaboration with DiCaprio and the eleventh with De Niro. The two will start alongside Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and the Oscars 2023 Best Actor recipient, Brendan Fraser.
This is a huge deal for Apple TV Plus, and we can expect the marketing to ramp up as soon as the film screens at Cannes.
When can I watch Killers of the Flower Moon?
As Apple TV Plus is distributing the film alongside Paramount Pictures, Killers of the Flower Moon will get a cinema release alongside a streaming release.
If you’re one of the lucky ones to be part of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Killers of the Flower Moon will have its world premiere on Saturday, 20th May. For the mortals among us, the film will be released in select cinemas on October 6th, 2023, and a wider release on October 20th, 2023.
The Killers of the Flower Moon streaming release date has still not been confirmed, but when it launches on Apple TV Plus, it’s likely to be one of the best movies on the platform.
How long is Killers of the Flower Moon?
If you thought Scorsese’s last movie, The Irishman, was too long, you might not like to hear that Killers of the Flower Moon is an almost four-hour-long epic. However, with a runtime of 206 minutes, you’ll want to ensure you’re fully awake before heading to the cinema or sitting down on the couch to turn on Apple TV Plus.
Luckily, Martin Scorsese rarely disappoints, so the film will likely be worth your time.
Is Killers of the Flower Moon a potential Oscar winner?
It’s Scorsese, DiCaprio, and De Niro – so Apple sure hopes so. Killers of the Flower Moon will likely have a huge marketing budget behind it to push for another Academy Award victory for Apple TV Plus after the success of CODA in 2022.
There’s still a while to wait until we know if the film is any good, but everything points to a huge success and an award season to match. Once the dust has settled on the world premiere, we’ll have a better understanding of how good the film is and whether or not it could be Scorses’s last hurrah.