Leonardo DiCaprio To Play Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo DiCaprio is wanted by Paramount to play his namesake in a new Leonardo Da Vinci biopic.
Fulfilling a long-held ambition to play the famous artist and inventor – according to his mother, she was looking at a painting of da Vinci’s while pregnant with the future Oscar winner, and felt the baby kick so hard that she named her son after the painter whose work she was admiring – DiCaprio will produce and star in the film which is based on an as-yet-unreleased biography of Da Vinci by Walker Isaacson.
Born in 1452 and died in 1519, Da Vinci is best known for painting Mona Lisa and The Last Supper but he was also a skilled inventor. Some even credit him with first coming up with the concept for the helicopter. But that was only the tip of the iceberg; he was also a genius at math, writing, botany, science, music, history, cartography, and numerous other subjects.
Isaacson has already seen his books adapted into movies and TV series, including the 2015 Michael Fassbender movie Steve Jobs and the first season of Genius where Geoffrey Rush played Albert Einstein. His book about da Vinci will be released on October 17, 2017.
According to Variety, Paramount and Universal engaged in a bidding war over the property which Paramount has won — to the tune of seven figures.
