Martin Scorsese's next project is the Oscar-winning director's long-awaited return to mobster epics, and the haggling for its rights would make the toughest negotiator proud.

STX Entertainment prevailed in a deal worth $50 million for foreign rights to The Irishman after a bidding war whose final points were hammered out poolside at Vanity Fair's May 14 Cannes bash, where erstwhile Scorsese collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Mick Jagger partied while a handful of dealmakers representing disparate studios were sitting on pins and needles.

"A lot of the people who were potential players were all at that party," says STX International president David Kosse, who fine-tuned his company's offer between canape bites. "I was hearing Fox was in, Fox was out. Universal was in, Universal was out. But everyone was in the dark. No one really knew anything until the next morning."

The deal finally was struck hours after the final straggler left the Hotel du Cap. The bidding was fierce and also included IM Global and Bloom, but Mexican financier Gaston Pavlovich's Fabrica de Cine, which is fully financing the $100 million movie, opted for STX. Paramount, which will handle domestic distribution, will collaborate with STX on marketing.

The Irishman, written by Gangs of New York's Steve Zaillian based on a best-seller by Charles Brandt, reunites Scorsese with his original muse, Robert De Niro, who will play Frank Sheeran, a high-ranking Teamster with ties to the Bufalino crime family. Shortly before his death in 2003, Sheeran confessed that he killed fellow Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, whose body never has been found. He also claimed that he played a role in John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Al Pacino also is on board the long-gestating project, and The Irishman would mark the first collaboration between the actor and fellow gangster-movie icon Scorsese. But one question mark is the involvement of Joe Pesci. Sources say Pesci, who largely has retired from the film business, repeatedly has told Scorsese no, but the director remains hopeful that he can lure back his Goodfellas star.

As for how STX landed The Irishman, Kosse had one advantage. When he was head of Universal International, he helped the studio acquire foreign rights to Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, which became a big hit overseas, earning $275 million of its $392 million total haul internationally.

"I'm not convinced that gave us an inside track, but it probably helped," says Kosse. Instead, he thinks STX won with a pitch that emphasized the film's importance to the upstart studio, which Robert Simonds launched in 2014.

"We certainly pitched that to have a film like this on our release schedule, it would be our most important project," adds Kosse. "Maybe they wanted to be at a place where they would be the No. 1 or No. 2 film on a slate, as opposed to No. 3 or No. 4."

So far, this year's Cannes has been a major coming-out for STX. A day before the Irishman deal, the studio prebought U.S. and China rights for Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut, Molly's Game, starring Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba, for $9 million.

Hong Kong-based Media Asia has acquired distribution rights to Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman for China. A Middle Kingdom release would be a coup for the director who was once banned from entering the country after the government objected to his 1997 Dalai Lama epic Kundun. The Irishman will star Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, teaming the latter with Scorsese for the first time in their storied careers. Paramount has domestic and the film would need to be approved in China once completed.

The Irishman is expected to shoot in 2017 with a domestic release eyed for late 2018. The mob picture was the subject of a heated bidding war in Cannes this year where STX Entertainment was ultimately victorious, acquiring international rights in a deal understood to be worth $50M. (The company has been strengthening ties to China, last week saying it had brought on the Middle Kingdom’s Tencent and Hong Kong’s PCCW as equity partners.)

Written by Oscar-winner Steve Zaillian, The Irishman is based on the Charles Brandt book I Heard You Paint Houses, which is the deathbed story from hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran about the disappearance and death of the former Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Zaillian previously scripted Scorsese’s Gangs Of New York.

The China rights deal was negotiated by Media Asia General Manager Fred Tsui and STX President of International Sales John Friedberg.

The Irishman became one of the most eagerly anticipated movie projects in development when it was announced that Martin Scorsese would be directing Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and hopefully Joe Pesci in the long mooted crime drama. Based upon Charles Brandt's novel I Heard You Paint Houses, The Irishman tells the story of Frank Sheeran, who on his deathbed claimed to have murdered Jimmy Hoffa. But now producer Gaston Pavlovich has given us another reason to start counting down the months, weeks and days until The Irishman is with us, as he's confirmed that it's going to follow the path recently paved by Rogue One and de-age Robert De Niro.

Gaston Pavlovich made this revelation to me when I sat down with him to chat about Silence, the latest Martin Scorsese film that Pavlovich had a key role in finally bringing to the screen following 25 years in development hell. During my chat, I quizzed Pavlovich about The Irishman, specifically Robert De Niro's past comments about how he'll be made to look younger in the film. This then provoked Pavlovich to add,

Well it's an extraordinary technology that we've been looking at. You don't use prosthetics, make-up, they have acting and the technology is able to have them go through different time ages without the prosthetics. So we've seen some tests and it looks extraordinary. We were able to film Bob and just do a scene, and we saw it come down to when he was like 20, 40, 60, so we're looking forward to that, from that point of view, for The Irishman ... Imagine seeing what De Niro looked like in The Godfather 2 days, that's pretty much how you're going to see him again.

But Robert De Niro won't be hogging this technology all for himself. That's because Robert De Niro previously revealed that every other member of _The Irishman's _cast will be made to look younger in the film, too, which means that we are almost certainly going to see 1970s era Al Pacino and Bobby D squaring off with each other.

Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to Martin Scorsese’s gangster movie “The Irishman,” starring Robert De Niro.

Netflix would not comment on the deal but sources close to the project confirmed a report by IndieWire.

“The Irishman” will be the ninth collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro. Steven Zaillian has written the script, based on the Charles Brandt’s 2004 book, “I Heard You Paint Houses,” which centered on the life of the mob hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran.

Scorsese and De Niro first partnered on 1973’s “Mean Streets,” followed by “Tax Driver,” “New York, New York,” “Raging Bull,” “The King of Comedy,” “Goodfellas,” “Cape Fear” and 1996’s “Casino.”

Production on “The Irishman” is expected to start later this year.

The project originated in 2008 at Paramount with De Niro’s Tribeca Productions with De Niro’s producing partner Jane Rosenthal and Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions.

The “Irishman” title comes from criminal slang for contract killings and the blood splatter on walls. Brandt befriended Sheeran shortly before Sheeran died in 2003 and confessed to the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, carried out on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino. Hoffa disappeared in 1975 and was never found.

Project would mark Scorsese’s follow-up to “Silence,” a major disappointment for Paramount since opening wide on Jan. 18. The $46 million-budgeted drama has earned just $7 million domestically and may have contributed to Brad Grey’s exit as CEO of the studio last week.

More coming…

Martin Scorsese told an audience at the British Film Institute in London on Feb. 22 that watching a movie at home wasn't the "best way." How ironic then that the day before, news surfaced that the helmer was closing a deal with theater owners' nemesis Netflix to fund his new film, The Irishman.

The terms may have been too sweet to resist in the wake of the ultra-expensive period piece leaving Paramount after Scorsese ally Brad Grey's departure from the studio. The streaming giant has agreed to pay $120 million for worldwide rights to the picture, expected to cost between $120 million and $150 million. The Irishman will use expensive technology to make its three stars — Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci — appear at ages 30, 50 and 70 to tell the real-life story of Frank Sheeran, a Teamsters official who confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa.

Before shooting gets underway, Scorsese and his reps (led by WME's Ari Emanuel and manager Rick Yorn) will have to untangle a series of foreign-sales deals that were put in place before Netflix's involvement. In 2016, STX Entertainment made a splashy $50 million deal for international rights with Mexican financier Gaston Pavlovich, one of the producers of Scorsese's last picture, Silence. STX in turn sold various rights to foreign distributors. Now STX likely will have to move aside or make a legal claim.

It wouldn't be the first time Netflix has swooped in to outspend its rivals: It did much the same with Dee Rees' Mudbound, paying a festival-high $12.5 million at Sundance in January.

Sources say Scorsese is optimistic and has written to Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos personally to assure him everything can be resolved.

Martin Scorsese told an audience at the British Film Institute in London on Feb. 22 that watching a movie at home wasn't the "best way." How ironic then that the day before, news surfaced that the helmer was closing a deal with theater owners' nemesis Netflix to fund his new film, The Irishman.

The terms may have been too sweet to resist in the wake of the ultra-expensive period piece leaving Paramount after Scorsese ally Brad Grey's departure from the studio. The streaming giant has agreed to pay $120 million for worldwide rights to the picture, expected to cost between $120 million and $150 million. The Irishman will use expensive technology to make its three stars — Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci — appear at ages 30, 50 and 70 to tell the real-life story of Frank Sheeran, a Teamsters official who confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa.

Before shooting gets underway, Scorsese and his reps (led by WME's Ari Emanuel and manager Rick Yorn) will have to untangle a series of foreign-sales deals that were put in place before Netflix's involvement. In 2016, STX Entertainment made a splashy $50 million deal for international rights with Mexican financier Gaston Pavlovich, one of the producers of Scorsese's last picture, Silence. STX in turn sold various rights to foreign distributors. Now STX likely will have to move aside or make a legal claim.

It wouldn't be the first time Netflix has swooped in to outspend its rivals: It did much the same with Dee Rees' Mudbound, paying a festival-high $12.5 million at Sundance in January.

Sources say Scorsese is optimistic and has written to Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos personally to assure him everything can be resolved.