Scorsese casts Andrew Garfield in 'Silence'

In Hollywood, sometimes projects take decades to make. Then if they're hits, everyone admires the persistence of those involved. And if it's a miss, well, then there was a reason it took all those years to pull together. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese has finally pulled financing together for Silence. He first had interest after reading the book by Shusaku Endo 25 years ago. Nine years after that, a script was completed, and now it's been another decade and a half without a movie. One reason the project has been on the back burner is because it's a tough sell--an introspective story about religion, and the person who wanted to helm it suffered a good degree of backlash from his 1988 movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

The early 1600s-set story will see Andrew Garfield playing a Portuguese Jesuit who travels to Japan to find out if rumors are true that his mentor has abandoned the Church. At that time, Christians were forced to go underground due to religious persecution. In the unfamiliar land, he ponders questions about what it means to be faithful when you are suffering for your beliefs, and whether it is worthwhile to proselytize. Ken Watanabe will play his translator.

Production is set to start in June of 2014, a year from now. Scorsese is currently in post-production on The Wolf of Wall Street, which will come out Nov. 15.  In terms of style, I suspect Silence will look like Kundun or Last Temptation, not his more stylized (and populist) works like Goodfellas. It's been a while since the filmmaker has done a spare, serious drama, so it will be a pleasure for many arthouse lovers to see someone like Scorsese stretch himself and work in less familiar territory.

I'm also curious if there's any chance this movie might catch the eye of the faith-based community. Certainly, the book seems more doubtful and reflective than a kind of evangelist movie that has more easy answers, but if this subject matter does resonate with Christians, that will certainly make it that much more impactful at the box office. The backlash over a movie like Last Temptation, which supposedly caught Scorsese by surprise, certainly does not bode well for a positive reception. At the Cannes Film Festival, Scorsese may drum up more interest (and investors), further securing that Silence will be next up on his production slate.