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Scorsese’s next film: a Hawaiian-set mob epic
Emily Blunt has offered one of the clearest updates yet on a high-profile Martin Scorsese project that has been quietly making the rounds in Hollywood: a Hawaiian-set mob drama long billed by insiders as a Goodfellas-style crime picture. Speaking at the Beverly Hills premiere of Benny Safdie’s A24 biopic The Smashing Machine, Blunt described the story as “the last great American mob story,” and confirmed that she and Dwayne Johnson are developing parts for the picture.
“We’re developing it right now. It’s a really astonishing story,” Blunt told reporters on the red carpet. “It’s the last great American mob story, and I can’t believe it hasn’t been told yet. It’s a terribly exciting role for [Johnson] to kind of dig into. So, it’s being written, we’re working on it. And that’s the wonderful part, is building it.”
What we know so far
The film’s seed comes from a pitch written by Nick Bilton and centers on a ruthless Hawaiian crime boss modeled on Wilford “Nappy” Pulawa, who led The Company—the islands’ largest organized crime syndicate—in the 1970s. Scorsese reportedly envisions the picture as a character-driven, violent chronicle of turf wars involving triads, corrupt labor rackets, gambling rings and even clashes with U.S. military influence on the islands.
Producers attached include Scorsese himself alongside Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nick Bilton, Dany Garcia and others. Industry chatter that began circulating earlier this year suggests Disney has been in talks to develop the project—an alignment that would bring one of cinema’s most celebrated auteurs into collaboration with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
How this compares to Scorsese’s past works
Comparisons to Goodfellas and other Scorsese mob films are inevitable. What makes the Hawaiian setting compelling is how it reframes the familiar gangster tropes in a very different cultural and geographic landscape. Whereas Goodfellas and Casino mined the urban and midwestern American mafioso ecosystems, a film focused on Pulawa and The Company promises a mix of local history, post-war geopolitics and organized crime’s globalization.
If Scorsese leans into the moral ambiguity and operatic violence of his earlier crime epics, expect a layered portrait somewhere between the intimate character studies of Raging Bull and the sprawling power plays of The Irishman. The presence of Dwayne Johnson—described by Blunt as having a “terribly exciting” role to dig into—also signals a potentially different type of leading-man turn: Johnson has been broadening his range with dramatic and genre work in recent years.
Context and cultural notes
The Pulawa story intersects with under-covered chapters of American criminal history: organized crime outside the continental U.S., shadow economies tied to gambling and drugs, and how local syndicates navigated U.S. military bases and surging tourism. That historical richness gives the project more than surface-level gangster spectacle; it can illuminate the social and economic forces that allowed such organizations to grow.
Film historian Marko Jensen weighs in: "A Scorsese mob film set in Hawaii could open viewers’ eyes to a region often exoticized on screen. This isn't just transplanting mob tropes—it's an opportunity to interrogate how power operated in a very specific time and place."
Casting, production and fan reaction
Alongside Johnson and Blunt, Leonardo DiCaprio’s name has been linked as a frequent Scorsese collaborator and potential lead. Fans of Scorsese’s work have been buzzing on social media—some thrilled by the auteur’s next foray into crime, others cautious about Hollywoodizing a complex local history. Behind-the-scenes trivia: the real-life Pulawa was famously barred from Nevada casinos in 1975 and served time for tax evasion, facts that screenwriters often use as narrative anchors in biographical crime films.
This project also fits a current trend of big-name talent returning to prestige, auteur-driven cinema after years of franchise work, and of major studios packaging directors, A-list casts and high-concept pitches as event films.
Whether Scorsese will push for authenticity with location shoots in the islands or craft a more stylized moral fable remains to be seen. For now, production is in development, scripts are being written, and the creative team is building the film from the ground up.
In short: it’s a promising mix of Scorsese-era mob storytelling and fresh terrain—geographically, culturally and cinematically—and it’s one to watch as details firm up and casting becomes official.
Source: deadline
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