Scorsese takes over Tom Cruise's offices at Paramount

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Scorsese Signs Production Deal at Paramount
Source: Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures has entered into a four-year, first-look deal with legendary director and producer, Martin Scorsese, it was announced today by Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Under the terms of the deal, Scorsese will direct and produce entertainment across all platforms including feature films, made-for-DVD, digital content and television for Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage.

Scorsese, whose most recent film, The Departed starring Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, distributed by Warner Bros., and produced by Brad Grey, along with Brad Pitt and Graham King, has already grossed over $150 million dollars worldwide in its 5th week of release.

In making the announcement, Grey said, "Marty and I have enjoyed great personal success together of late. Now it is our great privilege to welcome Marty to the Paramount Pictures family – a motion picture dream come true."

"I have had a great personal relationship with Brad Grey for several years now and am looking forward to working with him at Paramount, a studio rich in cinematic history and responsible for making some of my favorite films—'Sunset Boulevard,' 'Shane' and 'The Heiress,' among others," said Scorsese.

Additionally, Paramount will have the opportunity to co-finance and co-distribute all Scorsese-directed films for third parties for the next four years. The deal marks Scorsese's first overall pact in several years, and will commence on November 1, 2006. He will continue to be based in his New York offices.

Scorsese, whose Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator, received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, is currently in pre-production on the Untitled Rolling Stones documentary feature film, which will be distributed in North America byParamount.

Scorsese has directed more than 40 films, including current box office hit The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. He is one of the most honored filmmakers in Hollywood, with six each Academy Award nominations and Directors Guild of America nominations.

In 2005, he directed and produced the Emmy and Grammy Award-winning documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.

Scorsese is the founder of Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation and education. The organization has preserved some 450 films to date.

[Gold Trumpet]

The significance: Scorsese has gotten over his bad experience of making The Departed and is ready to commit to feature filmmaking beyond Silence. (He just won't be working with Jack Nicholson ever again)

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Marty takes on the French
Scorsese challenge: 'Duel'
Source: Variety

Basking in the glow of the biggest box office success of his career with "The Departed," Martin Scorsese is now taking on medieval France.

Under his new deal at Paramount, Scorsese will develop with an eye to direct the bigscreen adaptation of Eric Jager's historical tome "The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France."

Kevin Misher's Par-based Misher Films is producing for the studio.

While it's the first feature project identified for Scorsese under the Paramount pact, "Duel" won't necessarily be his next film, say the studio and Scorsese's reps. He's currently shooting a docu on the Rolling Stones for Par.

Jager's book, published by Broadway Books in 2004, tells the story of a duel that occurred in 1386 between knights Jean de Carrouges and Jacques LeGris. Duel was the last sanctioned by the French government, in this case by a young King Charles IV.

Scorsese is no stranger to period pieces, having directed "Gangs of New York" and "The Age of Innocence."

Under his four-year first-look deal with Paramount, Scorsese will direct and produce features, direct-to-DVD, television and digital content. He will remain based in New York, with the studio providing roughly $2.5 million in overhead annually.

One unusual feature of the deal: Par has the option to co-finance and co-produce any project Scorsese does elsewhere.

Scorsese was lured by Paramount chair-CEO Brad Grey, and his former agent is Par Vantage prexy John Lesher. Scorsese continues to be repped by Endeavor.

Misher, who is in post production with "Case 39" for Par, also is producing "The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-Up" for the studio, among other projects. At U, he's producing "It Takes a Thief" and "Sub-Mariner."

[Pubrick]

no word on silence. how ironic.