The Audition, Martin Scorsese’s short film has been cancelled to premiere at Venice Film Festival. The festival announced that the 17-minute short, The Audition, is having some “unexpected technical problems” and will not be ready for next month’s event. Terence Winter wrote the script for the audition who has also worked with Scorsese before in “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
The short was first announced back in August of last year, was made, in part, to promote Melco-Crown Entertainment casinos in Macau and Manila. The film features highly rated actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt. Scorsese also acts in the movie.
Scorsese’s body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, modern crime, and gang conflict. Many of his films are also notable for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity. He has directed landmark films such as the crime film Mean Streets (1973), the vigilante-drama Taxi Driver(1976), the biographical sports drama Raging Bull(1980), the black comedy The King of Comedy(1983), and the crime films Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro.
Scorsese has also been noted for his collaborations with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, having directed him in five films, beginning with Gangs of New York (2002). Their latest collaboration, The Wolf of Wall Street, was released in 2013.
Venice director Alberto Barbera had told THR earlier in an interview, “It’s a Scorsese film, not a commercial. The casino paid for the film, but it’s not in the film at all.” The film is made on a whooping budget of $70 million, with each actor taking home $13 million for the two-day shoot according to Pace Six. The casino has denied these figures though.
Scorsese often casts the same actors in his films, particularly Robert De Niro, who collaborated with Scorsese for eight films. Later, Scorsese found a new muse with younger actor Leonardo DiCaprio, collaborating for five films to date.
Teasers for the film were released in January this year, one with the actors on location in Manila and one in Macau, but they were quickly taken down.
The producers hoped that the film would be ready for the 72nd Venice Film Festival but the film is still in post-production and it will some more time to complete, told to the THR.
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