Martin Scorsese isn’t known as a horror director as he usually helms crime films with religious themes or religious movies with even stronger religious themes. But he has directed a couple of movies that have enough jump scares and creepy atmosphere to be classified as horror movies. Taxi Driver tells of the disturbing psychological downfall of Travis Bickle, while Cape Fear follows the traditional structure of a thriller.
Arguably the closest thing Scorsese has made to a horror movie is Shutter Island, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. Marshal who travels to a mental institution on a remote island to investigate the disappearance of an inmate. Here are 10 noteworthy details from the making of Shutter Island.
Martin Scorsese And Leonardo DiCaprio Originally Wanted To Make The Wolf Of Wall Street First
![Some Places Never Let You Go: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Shutter Island](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1400x700-1-5.jpg)
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio originally planned to make The Wolf of Wall Street their next collaboration after The Departed. However, they couldn’t secure the $100 million budget they wanted for a movie about a corrupt stockbroker, so they decided to make Shutter Island first instead.
The Ending Is Foreshadowed Throughout The Movie
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Martin Scorsese filled the first couple of acts of Shutter Island with hints and intentional continuity errors to foreshadow the movie’s surprise ending. For example, a patient’s water appears in some shots and doesn’t appear in others.
These hints were also included in the dream sequences to show the similarities between what Teddy perceives to be a dream and what he perceives to be reality.
Shutter Island Is The Only Scorsese/DiCaprio Collaboration With No Oscar Nominations
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Shutter Island is the only collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio that didn’t receive any Academy Award nominations.
This could be because Paramount decided to push its release date back from October 2009 to February 2010 in order to use its annual Oscar campaigning budget on Up in the Air and The Lovely Bones.
Some Of The Movie Was Planned To Be Shot On 65mm
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Scorsese originally planned to shoot the dream sequences at the Dachau concentration camp with 65mm cameras. This would make it the first of five major 2010s movies to be shot on 65mm, the others being The Master, Dunkirk, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Hateful Eight.
However, on the second night of shooting on 65mm, the cameras stopped working. Only a couple of 65mm shots — which depict Teddy walking through the camp in civilian clothing — made it into the movie.
Mark Ruffalo Won His Role By Sending A Fan Letter To Martin Scorsese
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Before Mark Ruffalo was cast to play Chuck Aule, his future MCU co-stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Josh Brolin were considered for the part. Ruffalo won the role by sending a fan letter to Martin Scorsese in which he told him how much he’d love to work with him.
The Movie Could’ve Been Called Ashecliffe
![Jackie Earle Haley in Shutter Island](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Jackie-Earle-Haley-in-Shutter-Island.jpg)
During production on Shutter Island, the producers considered calling the movie Ashecliffe after the asylum setting. The book on which the movie was based, written by Dennis Lehane and published in 2003, was called Shutter Island.
There’s been talk of a TV prequel series about the asylum that would be called Ashecliffe, originally set to air on HBO, but it has yet to come to fruition.
Filming Lasted For Four Months
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Scorsese and his cast and crew spent four months shooting Shutter Island in 2008, two years before the movie would eventually hit theaters.
Columbia Pictures first bought the film rights to Dennis Lehane’s novel after it was initially published in 2003, but due to delays, the rights ended up reverting back to Lehane before the movie got made.
The Film’s Psychiatric Consultant Has A Definitive Answer To Its Ambiguous Ending
![Leonardo DiCaprio goes to be lobotomized in the final scene of Shutter Island](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Shutter-Island-final-shot.jpg)
Although the ending of Shutter Island is famously ambiguous and Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have kept schtum about its meaning, the movie’s psychiatric consultant, Dr. James Gilligan, has provided a definitive answer.
Dr. Gilligan believes that Teddy Daniels chose to be lobotomized as Andrew Laeddis. His guilt over his past mistakes led him to accept a full lobotomy as a form of suicide.
Scorsese Was Inspired By Zombie Movies
![Martin Scorsese Leonardo DiCaprio Shutter Island](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Martin-Scorsese-Leonardo-DiCaprio-Shutter-Island.jpg)
When Martin Scorsese was looking for inspiration for the visual style and tone of Shutter Island, he was influenced by Val Lewton’s pre-Romero zombie movies from the 1940s. Before filming, Scorsese also screened Vertigo and Out of the Past for the cast and crew to give them an idea of what he was going for.
David Fincher Almost Directed This Movie With Brad Pitt And Mark Wahlberg
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Martin Scorsese was not the first director attached to Shutter Island. The film rights to the book were initially optioned so that Wolfgang Petersen could direct it. Petersen wanted to make significant changes to Dennis Lehane’s book in order to make his adaptation as an action-packed blockbuster.
When the plans with Petersen fell through, the producers offered the project to David Fincher. Fincher was planning to cast Brad Pitt — with whom he’d worked on Fight Club, Se7en, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — and Mark Wahlberg in the lead roles.