Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro did not attend the London premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon

Legendary director Martin Scorsese stood alone on the red carpet at the London premiere of his latest film. Killers of the Flower Moonas its leading men Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons couldn’t wait amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes.

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Based on the 2017 popular science book of the same name. Killers of the Flower Moon tells the unique true story of the 1920s Osage murders in the American West and the subsequent birth of the FBI. It is a raw and disturbing portrayal of the brutality that was commonplace as America continued to conquer the lands of indigenous peoples and their communities.

The film’s world premiere in Cannes earlier this year received a stunning 9-minute standing ovation – as is customary at a French film festival – but during the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday, Martin Scorsese, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and accomplished directors, was forced to walk the red carpet in alone, without the support of the leading men and women of his picture.

“I’m disappointed that we don’t have actors,” Scorsese admitted. “It’s a good time for them to be here and enjoy it, even if it’s just a moment of photographing together, it took a few years to make the film, everything they went through.”

SAG-AFTRA strikes threaten to continue amid disputes over fairer wages and ongoing challenges related to the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies; The Cannes, Toronto and Venice film festivals have been hit by ongoing strikes, and this has caused numerous films to be delayed as actors are banned from promoting their films.

It is currently unclear when they will end, although the WGA strikes, which began months before the SAG-AFTRA unions joined, have now reached a historic agreement allowing thousands of Hollywood writers to return to shows they were forced to abandon.

For Scorsese, however, the strikes were just the latest in a long line of disruptions during the making of his latest epic.

“The pandemic has taken its toll, there is no doubt about that,” Scorses continued in London. “It took a toll on time and breaks. But we finally finished the work, and for me it is a special film. “Especially over the years, I tried to shape it into the story that I wanted to tell with Leo, Lily Gladstone, De Niro, Jesse Plemons and all the Osages that were with us in this picture.”

Killers of the Flower Moon debuted with an IMDb rating of 9.1 and will be released on October 19, 2023 in Australia.