In 1969, Scorsese and screenwriter Jay Cocks approached author Philip K. Dick about adapting his dystopian sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to film. Though the two never got around to optioning the rights, Dick’s novel was eventually made as the film Blade Runner, in 1982.

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Around 1990, following the critical and commercial success of Goodfellas, Scorsese pursued a film epic about Theodora’s relationship with emperor Justinian I, and the founding of the Byzantine Empire.[5] Novelist Gore Vidal was set up at Universal Pictures to write the script for Theodora, but the project never materialized. “Marty says that seven years is about right to get a picture made nowadays,” said Vidal in 1994. “We’re waiting on new technology, to show battle scenes without Ben-Hur prices.”

He just needs to figure out how to combine these all into one film.