Apple TV+ has been dominating viewers’ screens since its November 2019 launch, quickly rising in priority on users’ subscribed lists. The streamer has attached Martin Scorsese to The Wager, based on author David Grann’s historical nonfiction epic, with Leonardo DiCaprio to star. This will be Scorsese and DiCaprio’s seventh project together, after movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York, The Departed, Shutter Island, and soon, Apple TV’s Flower Moon, also starring Robert De Niro. What can we expect from this all-star duo’s seventh reunion on the screen?

Imperative Entertainment’s Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas are producing with Scorsese via Sikelia Productions, while DiCaprio and his partner Jennifer Davisson will produce through their company Appian Way Productions. The executive producer is Richard Pleper through the Eden Productions banner. A lot of weight is being thrown behind this project, so let’s jump into what Scorsese and DiCaprio fans should know about The Wager and Grann’s critically acclaimed novels!

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The Wager: The Plot

     Warner Bros. Pictures

Bestselling author David Grann’s soon-to-be-released 2023 novel The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder is a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder, according to preliminary descriptions. The novel centers on thirty barely alive and emaciated men who washed ashore in Brazil on a desperately improvised raft on January 28th, 1742. The men are survivors of a top-secret treasure hunting ship, His Majesty’s The Wager. During the imperial war with Spain, the ship wrecked while in pursuit of “the prize of all oceans,” a Spanish ship loaded with priceless valuables.

After months of being stranded on a desert island, the surviving men built the raft and drifted at sea for a hundred days before landing as heroes on the shores of Brazil. This isn’t even the story’s most interesting part, but what happens next is.

Six months after this event, a raft in even worse shape washes ashore in Chile, hosting three castaways who had a very different perspective of the events recounted by the thirty. According to these three castaways, the thirty heroes of The Wager were guilty of the worst treason imaginable in His Majesty’s navy: they were mutineers. Accusations fly, and the stakes are acquittal or execution in Grann’s intense tale of loyalty and betrayal, truth and lie, anarchy and duty.

The Wager: The Cast & Crew

The only known names attached to the film at this point are Scorsese and DiCaprio. ​​​​​​Though we have yet to see Killers of the Flower Moon, which is due to be released in May 2023, we can expect that Scorsese will lend both to it and The Wager his distinct, haunting, and immersive style to the tales. The harshly divided subject matter of The Wager gives the legendary filmmaker a lot to sink his teeth into as a master craftsman. It is sure to be another committed performance by DiCaprio, who also made the survival drama The Revenant so unforgettable. The Wager is a story with human drama, gruesome visuals, and unforgiving motivation, which is up Scorsese’s alley.

The international setting and enormous implications of the story’s premise are very contained to this one time period, this particular affair, and this era of dominance of the British Navy. We can only assume Scorsese will capitalize on its broader themes and relevance to the larger population. All he needs is DiCaprio to bring it to life. We look forward to hearing more casting announcements in the months to come.

     Paramount Pictures

This isn’t the only Grann novel that Apple TV+ will be adapting. Tom Hiddleston is set to headline and executive produce the film The White Darkness, a harrowing polar exploration drama based on the novel of the same name with Soo Hugh and Mark Heyman. Apple TV has also finished production of the Grann-written, Scorsese-directed, and DiCaprio-starring Killers of the Flower Moon based on the Grann novel. It was also produced by Imperative and is set in an oil-wealthy Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma.

Grann has proven himself to be an engrossing, dynamic novelist, and it is exciting that the mammoth Apple streaming service has so eagerly devoured his works. Seeing such original and prolific authors get their due in mainstream Hollywood is an inspiring development for cinephiles desperate for new, never before seen stories. There have been a lot of complaints that mainstream Hollywood is all sequels as of late, so Apple TV’s continuation of its reputation as a hub for brand new blockbuster content is music to many ears. It’s about time more new novels, especially ones as unique and special as Grann’s, was seized and developed for TV-watching audiences.

Release Date

The Wager novel will be available on April 18th, 2023. A release date for the film adaptation has not yet been announced.