What’s telling about Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” is how few studios were willing to take on its $159-million price tag.
Only one company stepped up: Netflix.
Since the dawn of Hollywood, the major studios have been willing to gamble on grand ambition and spectacle, from 1927’s first Oscar-winner “Wings” and David Lean’s desert epic “Lawrence of Arabia” to the more recent “Titanic” and fantasy trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” Such all-in bets may make their backers lose sleep, but the movies can pay off handsomely, both at the box office and the Oscars.Without risk, there’s no reward.
The studios may be right that Scorsese’s sprawling 209-minute historical epic — which covers some of the same struggles among the Italian mafia, Teamster chief Jimmy Hoffa, and the Kennedys as Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” trilogy — might not sustain enough
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