Martin Scorsese Considered Violent Tactic to Steal ‘Taxi Driver’ From Studio originally appeared on Parade.
Martin Scorsese revealed the surprising lengths he was willing to take to make sure that his version of Taxi Driver was on the final cut.
In a first-look clip from the the upcoming five-part Apple TV+ documentary Mr. Scorsese, Scorsese, 82, and friend Steven Spielberg discussed how Columbia Pictures was concerned about some of the bloody content in the movie. The production studio almost even stopped Scorsese’s vision from appearing in theaters.
“Marty was very upset,” Spielberg, 78, said in the beginning of the clip. “I get a call at the office, and he said (imitating Scorsese’s hyper New York City accent), ‘Steve, Steve, this is Marty. Can you come over to the house.'”
Scorsese added, “They wanted me to cut all the blood spurting. They wanted me to cut the guy who loses the hand …”
When an interviewer offscreen asked if he had a gun, Scorsese responded, “I was going to get one.”
The interviewer asked Scorsese what he was “going to do what with the gun,” and he admitted that he didn’t have a solid plan.
Parade Daily🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
“I was angry. I said I was going to threaten them … I’ll maybe just shoot or something. I had no idea. I mean, I was just threatening. What I wanted to do, and not with a gun, I would go in, find out where the rough cut is, and break the windows and take it away,” Scorsese said. “They were going to destroy the film anyway, you know. So let me destroy it. I’ll destroy it. But before destroying it, I’m going to steal it.”
He continued, “Spielberg said, ‘Marty, stop that. Marty you can’t do that.’ I said… The more they said no, the more I said I was going to do it.”
Spielberg then shared that someone came up with a plan to “mollify” the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America], in which Scorsese toned down the bloodiness of the offending sequence with the color of the scene. “He just had to take the color red down to a kind of brown,” Spielberg explained.
Once the 1976 film was released, it was critically acclaimed and was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. Additionally, stars Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster earned acting nods.
Martin Scorsese Considered Violent Tactic to Steal ‘Taxi Driver’ From Studio first appeared on Parade on Aug 11, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
