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After the roughly $27 million opening of The Departed marked his best U.S. film opening to date, director Martin Scorsese is finally figuring out how make sure people start panting over his whereabouts so much that they offer him carte blanche on his next movie: announce that you're avoiding studio pictures in favor of a passion project, throw around the word "risk," and then immediately back off your statement just in case anyone takes it too seriously.

Scorsese said ... he was finding it harder and harder to work on big productions, and felt Hollywood studios restricted the creativity of directors.

"I think I am finding that when there are very big budgets there is less risk that can be taken," Scorsese told reporters in Rome after a press screening of his film. [...]

But Scorsese said that if he came across another script like "The Departed" and could rely on the same type of budget and freedom to do things his own way, he would not say no.

"I'd be tempted, because it's like a disease. It's like a drug."

Even though we love the idea of Marty reinventing himself as a shaggy auteur waif, we're pretty sure that the Japanese novel he's looking to adapt — a low-budget, 15-year passion project — will soon enough get shoved aside for something bigger. After all, just like Whitney Houston has been telling us for years, some drugs are just too cheap, and we're sure the allure of a studio that slavishly promises him the freedom he's always craved — to, say, cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the title character in a sprawling and controversial biopic of Queen Victoria — will be impossible to resist.