Enter Martin Scorsese
Director Martin Scorsese explained how Brian De Palma gave him the script. “I reacted very viscerally, almost mystically to it and its tone and the struggle of the character,” is how Scorsese remembers that moment. But he also said that it was at a time when he was still trying to get them to take him seriously as a filmmaker.
Martin Scorsese filming outside of the Palantine campaign headquarters for ‘Taxi Driver,’ June 1975. Photo by Fairchild Archive / Penske Media / Shutterstock
In the end, it took several years for the movie to get made. One day, Schrader suggested they watch a rough cut of Scorsese’s film Mean Streets. Midway through the screening, Phillips really felt that this is their guy. Johnny Boy, played by Robert De Niro, was THE guy. So Phillips made a proposal to Scorsese’s and De Niro’s agent. They wanted both of them as a package deal, or they wouldn’t do it at all.