Leonardo DiCaprio, frequent Martin Scorsese collaborator in films like The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street, has reportedly had his role in Scorsese’s next film, Killers of the Flower Moon, downgraded in order to keep the film’s already sky-high production budget down. Paying DiCaprio to be the leading man, an FBI agent sent to investigate the 1920’s Osage Nation Murders, would have sent the film’s budget from 180 million dollars to a ridiculous 200 million, per Collider and Rotten Tomatoes. 

Instead, DiCaprio is rumored to be playing a villain or possible anti-hero, and the nephew of Robert De Niro‘s character, the film’s main bad guy. It will be interesting to see who will be cast in DiCarpio’s former role, as it will most likely be somebody on a much lower profile than DiCaprio and De Niro, so that they wouldn’t command as high a salary as DiCaprio.

This all comes on the heels of the news that the film has moved from a Paramount production to an Apple production due to concerns over the film’s budget and recent script rewrites. It is reported that Paramount will still distribute the film to theaters worldwide, while technically being considered as produced by Apple, per Collider. After its release, the film will debut on Apple’s streaming platform, Apple TV+.

As a relative newcomer in the streaming world, nabbing the rights to a new Scorsese film with such big names attached is a huge win for Apple TV.

The script for Killers of the Flower Moon, was written by Eric Roth, and based on the 2017 novel of the same name by David Grann.