AceShowbiz -

While his latest work of "The Departed" has not yet seen the lights until October 6, Martin Scorsese has already come up with something else in mind. Production Weekly has unveiled that the Oscar-nominated director is intending to make his next film "Silence", an adaptation of the Japanese writer Shusaku Endo's most famous novel of the same English title.

A long-gestating project for Scorsese, the picture initially was aimed to be made after the filmmaker finish the production on "Gangs of New York." The man even had worked on the first draft of its script about a decade ago with Jay Cocks. However, all was put on hold as he decided to go for "The Departed" instead.

Generally regarded as Shusaku's masterpiece, "Silence" is set in sixteenth century Japan where the feudal lords try to drive Christianity out through torturing priests into apostasy. The story revolves around two Portuguese priests named Sebastian Rodrigues and Francis Garrpe who take risks to head for the country to both locate and comfort Japanese converts while discovering the truth about a supposed apostate priest, Ferreira.