Leonardo DiCaprio will reportedly play his namesake, Leonardo Da Vinci, in a new biopic about the artist.
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DiCaprio’s mother named the actor, who finally won an Oscar in 2016 for his performance in The Revenant, after the painter and scientist.
According to Deadline, Paramount has won a seven-figure auction between itself and Universal for the rights to adapt Walter Isaacson’s book about the Da Vinci.
As well as playing the Mona Lisa painter, DiCaprio is also slated to produce the film alongside Jennifer Davisson via their Appian Way company.
Isaacson reportedly used Da Vinci’s notebooks to connect his art and science, exploring some of his unusual studies, such as peeling flesh off the faces of dead bodies and drawing the muscles around the lips.
It was recently confirmed that DiCaprio, who has been absent from the big screen since The Revenant, will star in two new films from Martin Scorsese – The Black Hand and Killers Of The Flower Moon.
Last year, it was also announced that DiCaprio would produce and star in a new biopic about Elvis Presley’s producer and the founder of Sun Records.
Sam Phillips started the Memphis record label in 1952 at Sun Studio. Presley made his first recordings there, including debut single ‘That’s Alll Right’.
The as-yet-untitled film will have DiCaprio play Phillips, while Mick Jagger will serve alongside him in a producing role similar to his involvement with HBO’s Vinyl, according to Deadline. The movie is based on the book Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock’N’Roll by Peter Guralnick.