Los Angeles, Aug 24 (IANS): Director Martin Scorsese is facing a lawsuit for not helming a project that he agreed to do 22 years ago.

The lawsuit has been filed by Cecchi Gori Pictures.

According to the production company, the 69-year-old entered in an agreement to make a movie titled "Silence" way back in 1990, but put the project on the backburner so that he could work on three of his movies - "The Departed", " Shutter Island" and "Hugo", reports tmz.com.

Scorsese had reportedly signed a new agreement to make "Silence" in 2004, but kept delaying the project.

He is said to have again delayed the project to make "Wolf of Wall Street".

Scorsese paid for the right to do each of those films before "Silence", but never forked over the hefty fee for "Hugo".

The suit alleges Scorsese owes the owner of Cecchi Gori Pictures a fee of $1.5 million, plus the value of his producer title on "Hugo" + 20 percent of his back-end on "Hugo".

However, the director has not commented over the issue.