Martin Scorsese’s early success in the 1970s came with Mean Streets in 1973, a film that marked the beginning of a lucrative career collaborating with acting star Robert De Niro. Mean Streets’ successful formula of gritty realism and the stark reflection of inner-city life was brought to a climax in 1976 with the release of Scorsese’s magnum opus, Taxi Driver, written by Paul Schrader and starring De Niro. 

By the decade’s close, Scorsese had begun to create an immortal legacy, as had De Niro. It was at this juncture that De Niro handed Scorsese a copy of middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta’s memoir, Raging Bull: My Story, written with Peter Savage and Joseph Carter. At first, Scorsese dismissed De Niro’s idea of adapting the true story for a new film project.