Martin Scorsese Speculates on His Retirement - “A Couple More, One More Maybe, and That’s It, Okay?”

Martin Scorsese has been making films for a long time, and at 81 years old some people are wondering when the filmmaker might retire. Over the course of his career, Scorsese has had his fair share of fights with the studio system and sometimes the situations he found himself in were so frustrating he wanted to quit. But, he never has.

In a recent GQ interview, the director talked about some of his rough experiences with films that he’s worked on. With The Aviator, Warner Bros. cut his budget and he was forced to spend $500,000 of his own money to finish it. There were also issues with Gangs of New York, which was hurt by its producer, Harvey Weinstein, and Scorsese found himself wrestling him over the length and the budget of the film. He explained:

“I realized that I couldn’t work if I had to make films that way ever again. If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then I’d have to stop. Because the results weren’t satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be dead. And so I decided it was over, really.”

The director is still going strong, though! He managed to push through the Hollywood bullshit and keep making movies. But how many more films will Scorsese pump out before he retires? He recently speculated on that saying he might have one or two left in him. He explained:

“I got as far as this. And that’s what I do. That’s it. And if I could just muster up the energy, God willing, to make a couple more, one more maybe, and that’s it, okay? That’s as far as I got. You keep going until you can’t. But what I mean is that you gotta rip it out of your skull and your guts. To find out what the hell you really…what do you really feel should be said at this point in life by you? You gotta say something with a movie. Otherwise, what’s the point of making it? You’ve got to be saying something. […] How much longer can it be me? I’m gonna be 81. […] I don’t know! I’m gonna try until they pick me up off the floor. What can I tell you?”

We don’t know exactly what his next film or films will be, but he’s been circling a couple. One of them includes a new film about Jesus. He said: “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus, and I’m about to start making it.”

So, that might very well be his next project. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to watching his next film, Killers of the Flower Moon.