Surf’s up for 20th Century Studios.
The Disney division has picked up the Hawaii-set crime thriller package that has Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt attached to star, and Martin Scorsese attached to direct.
Lei-ed with a script by journalist and author Nick Bilton, the fact-based untitled movie is said to be in the mold of Scorsese’s Goodfellas and The Departed and center on a mob boss vying for control of the Hawaiian islands in the 1960s and 1970s.
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All the players will also be producers on the project: Scorsese is producing via his Sikelia Productions banner, Johnson via Seven Bucks Productions, DiCaprio via his Appian Way Productions, and Blunt through her Ledbury Productions company. Bilton is producing through his banner, True Story Productions, as well.
The project’s origins come from the ‘ohana-like bond between Blunt and Johnson. The concept and film idea originated from Blunt. And now Johnson is co-authoring a book with Bilton on the subject.
The untitled story tells of a formidable and charismatic mob boss who rises to build the islands’ most powerful criminal empire, waging a brutal war against mainland corporations and rival syndicates while fighting to preserve his ancestral land. His ruthless quest for absolute power ignited the last great American mob saga, where the war for cultural survival takes place in the unlikeliest of places: paradise.
Seven Bucks co-founder Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette from Sikelia Productions, Rick Yorn and Chris Donnelly from LBI Entertainment will act as executive producers.
Johnson and Garcia’s Seven Bucks signed a first-look deal with Disney earlier this year to develop films for theatrical and streaming. This is one of the first projects to come out from that partnership.
The Hawaii-set package hit the town a month ago and was one of the year’s more star-studded auction offerings. That 20th Century landed the project, rather than a rival studio such as Warner Bros. or a streaming platform, is testament to the revamp the division is undergoing via David Greenbaum, the president of Disney live action and 20th Century Studios.
Greenbaum gained oversight of the divisions a year ago, and one of his intentions was to make 20th Century a destination for prestige fare while also forging ties with name filmmakers. In the past year, the division, which has Steve Asbell as president, greenlit the new Ridley Scott feature Dog Star and the time-travel project The Barrier, from Edward Berger and Austin Butler. It also wrapped production on Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere starring Jeremy Allen White.
Scorsese last directed the film Killers of the Flower Moon, which starred DiCaprio and also had the duo producing. The two have several projects in development, including The Devil in the White City, the long-in-the-works adaptation that this year also landed at 20th Century. Appian, meanwhile, recently came on board to produce investigate documentary Nine Little Indians, which focuses on the abuses of a boarding school for Native American children.
Seven Bucks’ upcoming projects include A24’s The Smashing Machine, written and directed by Benny Safdie and starring Johnson and Blunt, as well Disney’s live-action Moana, due to premiere in 2026. Ledbury was involved in Netflix’s Pain Hustlers and Amazon Prime’s The English, and is currently developing Walk the Blue Fields, an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s short story.
