Spielberg in talks to direct DiCaprio in biopic
Los Angeles, May 18 (IANS) Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio are in early talks to collaborate on a Ulysses S. Grant biopic.
There’s no deal in place for Spielberg to direct it and the company Lionsgate had no comment on the news, reported variety.com.
The Grant project was set up last year with DiCaprio and Appian Way partner Jennifer Davisson producing a movie version of the Ron Chernow’s 2017 biography “Grant”.
Grant has been widely recognised as a superior military tactician for leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War under the supervision of President Abraham Lincoln, winning key battles at Shiloh and Vicksburg.
He won two terms as President as a successor to Andrew Johnson and stabilised the economy along with attempting to remove the last vestiges of slavery, which included working to crush the Ku Klux Klan. David James Kelly is adapting the biography.
Spielberg received his eighth Oscar directing nomination for helming 2013’s Civil War epic “Lincoln”, for which Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Academy Award for best actor.
He directed DiCaprio in 2002’s “Catch Me if You Can.”
DiCaprio’s next project is Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, set against the backdrop of the 1969 Manson Family murders.