If you haven’t already seen The Departed shame on you. Now cover your eyes so the big people can talk about it without spoiling it for you.
Scorsese’s The Departed does a pretty good job of wiping out most of the cast in a brutal bloodbath in the end. Actually, I think that’s the one place where Scorsese screws up in the pic. But the good thing about it should be that no matter how much money the movie makes there’s no way they can make a sequel to it.
Ah, but never underestimate the ingenuity of Hollywood where money is involved.
The Departed was Scorsese’s most financially successful film ever, and so the LA Times says the movie’s Oscar nominated screenwriter William Monahan is working on writing an extended and connected storyline involving the film’s characters.
They say this will absolutely not be a prequel, which is something of a relief. What Monahan is writing will simply be a continuation of the story. To me the way to accomplish that is obvious. Write about the one guy who lived through to the end, Mark Wahlberg’s character Digman. Not only did he live, but he disappears for the last half of the movie and the script never gets around to explaining where he’s been or why he suddenly shows up at the end out of nowhere and shoots Matt Damon in the head as a way of providing an overly convenient bookend. Fleshing his story out into an entirely new film seems like the obvious direction to take this.
The real question is would Scorsese be interested in doing it? They’ve got Monahan, so that’s at least something. But directors of his caliber don’t often revisit movies they’re already done with. There’s some precedent here though, since the movie on which The Departed is based, Infernal Affairs spawned a successful Infernal Affairs II. But Marty has never directed an “also” film. If he does it, this will be a first.
