Killers of the Flower Moon: Jesse Plemons replaces Leonardo DiCaprio’s original role in new Martin Scorsese film

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Editor

Jesse Plemons has replaced Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role of Martin Scorsese’s new film.

Production on Killers of the Flower Moon is set to begin in May until late summer. The film’s budget is $200m.

It’s now been revealed that Jesse Plemons, who played the son of Al Pacino’s Jimmy Hoffa in Scorsese’s The Irishman, will take on the role DiCaprio originally signed up for.

The move comes after the film’s writer, Eric Roth, claimed he “argued” with the Wolf of Wall Street star over his demands to play a different character.

DiCaprio was originally set to appear as Tom White, the FBI agent investigating a string of murders that plagued the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was found on their land.

The actor, who has worked with Scorsese five times previously, will now play the nephew of Robert De Niro’s rancher, Ernest Burkhart. This was the role he wanted to play.

Lily Gladstone will play Ernest’s wife, Mollie.

Speaking on the Script Notes podcast, Roth, said: “Leonardo wanted some things changed that we argued about. He won half of [the arguments]. I won half of them. So that’s happening.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Plemons, who will next be seen alongside Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah, had had to drop out of Jordan Peele’s new film to appear in Killers of the Flower Moon.

READ MORE: Killers of the Flower Moon script changed after arguments between Leonardo DiCaprio and writer

The film is an adaptation of David Grann’s best-selling book, which is subtitledThe Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. The script was written by Roth, the Oscar winner behind Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

It will be released on Apple TV+ in 2022.