Leonardo DiCaprio has been acting for decades, but he has somehow never played the most famous historical figure to share his relatively weird name—other than the turtle, but he’s never played that guy either. Finally, though, Deadline is reporting that Paramount has picked up the rights to Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci after a very heated bidding war, with Leonardo DiCapario attached to star as the man himself. In other words, Leonardo is Leonardo, and it will be a huge misstep if the movie isn’t simply called Leonardo.
Isaacson also wrote Steve Jobs, the book that became the Danny Boyle movie of the same name, and Deadline says that his Da Vinci book uses the man’s own notebooks to “weave a narrative that connects his art to his science and voracious curiosity and imagination.” It also paints Da Vinci as “a bit of a misfit,” with Deadline saying he’s “illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical.” Just picture all of that with a guy named Leonardo playing the guy named Leonardo, and it’s impossible to not get excited about this movie.
Now we just have to wait for Martin Scorsese to direct a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, and DiCaprio can complete the Leonardo circle.