First the Killers of the Flower Moon marketing team decided against booking Martin Scorsese’s murder-and-racism drama into one or two of the early fall festivals. Last May’s Cannes debut was enough, they seemed to be saying.

Now they’ve decided against a limited theatrical opening on 10.6 in favor of a big sweeping int’l debut on 10.20.

What the Apple / Paramount guys seem to be suggesting is that they don’t trust the word of mouth that may result from a limited opening, hence a preference for audiences flocking to the film wham-bam style, driven more by the name value of Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro than anything else.

They’ve also released a one-sheet that strangely attempts to sell a non-existent relationship dynamic between Leo’s Ernest Burkhart (a real-life, none-too-bright bad guy) and his wife, Mollie Burkhart, also real and played by the less-than-fully-emotive Lily Gladstone.

Ernest pretends to love and care for Mollie, but he’s half-playing her the whole time and then he does even worse in Act Three. Ernest is not her protector, and Lily can actually smell the duplicity early on, or at least from the mid-point. So the poster image is bullshit.