New York Film Film Festival 2019 Will Open with The Irishman

Is this a sign of future success for Scorsese?

The Irishman

Finally, a sign has come from Netflix that Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated film The Irishman will indeed play for this year’s awards season. In an announcement from the New York Film Festival website, the festival will open on September 27th with the first screening of The Irishman.

The film stars Robert De Niro as a hitman who may know the location of Jimmy Hoffa’s body, and how exactly he was killed. The star-studded cast also features Al Pacino as Hoffa, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano, and Jesse Plemons. The script will come from Academy-Award winner Steven Zaillian, who picked up an Oscar for Schindler’s List, and co-wrote Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.

While Netflix has a few other Oscar potential films announced to screen at other festivals, like Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat and The King, starring Timothee Chalamet, this is the big one we’ve been waiting for. The Irishman will also reportedly be Scorsese’s most expensive production to date with an estimated $200 million budget, likely due to the “de-aging” technology that will be used on De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci’s characters.

Netflix has not announced an official streaming date for The Irishman, or what the theatrical distribution plans are, but we can presume that Scorsese will push for the film to play in theaters first before going live on Netflix, as Alfonso Cuaron did with Roma last year. The 57th New York Film Festival runs from September 27th through October 13th.

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