Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg’s movie, The Departed is one of the most popular and appreciated movies of all time. Released in 2006, the movie was a thorough success and garnered a massive fan following. The film won several Oscar awards and a Golden Globe award. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie revolved around a cop who exposes one of the most treacherous crime syndicates in the city.
The Departed was the first movie that earned the director, Martin Scorsese, Oscar for Best Director in 2006. The film earned several accolades, including four Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. Scorsese also won Best Director Golden Globe for the action thriller.
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Mark Wahlberg pitched a sequel for The Departed
The movie did a massive earning worldwide with a gross of $291 million. Seeing the success of the original movie, the writer of the film, William Monahan had ideas for a sequel of the film.
In an attempt to revive the project, Mark Wahlberg joined Monohan in talks with the Warner Bros. studio, and he also revealed some of his ideas for a sequel. However, the meeting was not fruitful. Wahlberg told KFC Radio,
“I went into a meeting with Bill Monahan at Warner Brothers to pitch the sequel to The Departed. And let’s just say the pitch didn’t go very well. He really didn’t have anything fleshed out, but he’s the kind of guy you just trust to go and write something.”
Wahlberg also suggested that his pitch would have made for a pretty good movie. He also had actors like Robert DeNiro and Brad Pitt in mind for the sequel film.
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Martin Scorsese refused the sequel of The Departed
In an interview with Collider in 2016, The Departed producer Roy Lee shared that the movie writer Monahan had come up with an idea for a sequel. He shared that in the story they would have revived the characters who died in the original, however at the time Scorsese did not dig into his idea. Roy Lee said,
“[Monahan] came up with an amazing idea to make it work,” Lee said. “But it would be so expensive, and Scorsese didn’t want to do a sequel.”
Lee suggested,
“The Departed as a concept is amazing. That’s what attracted me to the story, the two moles working on either side of the law and translating that idea into other settings with new characters, like how Fargo has taken the feel of the Coen Brothers film.”
The producer further said that he and the director Martin Scorsese were in discussions about making Infernal Affairs a television series with a different city. The plan was to make The Departed a TV series.
The Departed is a loose adaptation of Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong action thriller.
The story of the movie is set in Boston, based on a cop who joins one of the most dangerous crime syndicates in the city. As per reports, it is also loosely based on the real-life stories of mobster Whitey Bulgur, corrupt federal agent John Connolly, and the Boston Winter Hill Gang.
The Departed is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Source-Showbiz Cheat Sheet
