Leonardo DiCaprio Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I thought we'd already been through this... The initial rumors and first word of a WarGames sequel, the silence followed by the inevitable continuation of the project, and the ill-reviewed and mostly ignored result. But this is Hollywood, and at least they doggedly stick to their try and try again mentality, and this time, there's a good chance that this won't be an ignorable project.

While Production Weekly is subscriber-only, they have a Twitter feed that shares little morsels of news, like the following report: "Leonardo DiCaprio looking to reboot the 80's thriller "War Games" at MGM." Yes, move over Matt Lanter, Leo wants to to do his own take on WarGames. But this won't be a sequel, this will be one of those dreaded reboots. First Ralph Maccio gets replaced with Jaden Smith, now Matthew Broderick will be replaced with ... I shudder to think.

I'm not sure how WarGames re-dos fit into a professional life busy with acting gigs like Beat the Reaper and production gigs like Akira, but maybe this is only the first breaths of a project that will fall into development hell. Oh, how I hope. But how about you? Are you super-excited to see WarGames rebooted?

Le sigh. The idea of Leonard DiCaprio beating the Reaper inspires notions of Leo facing the evil and irresistible grin of Ray Wise. (He's fun and all in Reaper, but it would be so much cooler to see Wise take the devilish role to darker, eerier places.) Unfortunately, that's not this kind of reaper. In fact, it's not a devil-led reaper at all.

Variety reports that New Regency is working on getting the rights to Josh Bazell's upcoming novel Beat the Reaper, for Leonardo DiCaprio to star in. Unlike the reaper-riffic television show, the book follows an emergency room doctor in New York City whose life is going smooth and easy until he runs into a mobster. However, this isn't a case of the crimelord corrupting the doc and making his life miserable -- rather, the mobster recognizes the doctor as a former hitman. See, the man went into the witness protection program, cleaned up his act, and became a body fixer, rather than a body-breaker.

Well, while I wish we could get big-screen Wise, this definitely sounds like a fun twist on the whole "running into a mobster" scenario. Thoughts?

It's hard to ignore the Oscar polish involved in Revolutionary Road; an Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes, reunites the stars of the Oscar-gobbling Titanic. To that end, Mendes does his best to make the film look serious and prestigious. And if you give it a cursory glance it's possible to come away with the impression that it is indeed a great and important film. But in truth, it's both relentlessly grim and nearly pointless.

It's "nearly" pointless because the subject matter -- that the suburbs have mutated and destroyed the American spirit -- has already been covered, many, many times in far better films, ranging from scary (Blue Velvet) to romantic (Far from Heaven) to funny (Edward Scissorhands). In a way, those outside genre elements helped keep the material from becoming overbearing. For Revolutionary Road, Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe have adapted a novel by Richard Yates, which was groundbreaking for its time; Yates wrote it in 1961 when polite society just didn't discuss such things as infidelity, ennui, drugs and booze and insanity. But Mendes creates a period picture and thus fails to justify why the material is still relevant in 2008, especially when this stuff has by now become its own movie subgenre. (Click on "Suburban Dysfunction" at allmovie.com.) The main factor for Mendes is that it's an "important novel." Never mind why -- or when.

Oscar season is heating up, and with two hotly-anticipated and much buzzed-about flicks currently screening for critics, early word on both Australia and Revolutionary Road is beginning to leak out. First up, Australia's Herald Son has published one of the first reviews of Baz Lurhman's Australia -- starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman -- saying it "features some of the most beautiful photography ever seen in an Australian film, from the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberley to the Northern Territory in the midst of the wet season," and that the film "has international blockbuster written all over it." Over at the Times Online UK, they've given the flick four out of five stars, and claim "Baz Luhrmann's long-awaited, and over-budget epic Australia manages, against the odds, to avoid turning into one big sunburnt stereotype about Godzone country. Instead, in what turns out to be a multi-layered story it describes an Australia of the 1940s that is at once compellingly, beautiful and breathtakingly cruel" But what do American audiences think? We'll find out a bit later in the week. Australia arrives in theaters on November 21.



Regarding Revolutionary Road (which is a book I'm reading now, and every couple of pages it makes me want to tell my wife I love her), Variety praises the flick -- which reunites Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on the big screen for the first time since Titanic -- saying it's "a very good bigscreen adaptation of an outstanding American novel -- faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot. It also offers a near-perfect case study of the ways in which film is incapable of capturing certain crucial literary qualities, in this case the very things that elevate the book from being a merely insightful study of a deteriorating marriage into a remarkable one." Glen Kenny adds that it's "a pretty splendid film, far and away the best Mendes has made." Revolutionary Road hits theaters on December 26.



Which are you more interested in watching: Australia or Revolutionary Road?

In a week littered with plenty of big-budget trailers piggy-backing on James Bond's undeniable popularity (Quantum of Solace just had the biggest opening day of any Bond film to date), the new one for Sam Mendes' domestic drama Revolutionary Road very nearly slipped through the cracks (thanks to Rob for passing it on, and Variety's Anne Thompson for premiering it).

This trailer plays more like a teaser than its predecessor, and yet it's a simple and short way to lure one into the suburban woes of stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. The very slightest rumbles and mumbles of its worthiness as an awards contender this season are beginning to issue from the earliest guild screenings, and I suspect that the weeks to come will only bring more buzz before the film bows in limited release the day after Christmas -- the same strategy that Paramount Vantage employed last year with a little film they like to call There Will Be Blood. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should really get back to this book Eugene kept going on about...

It's been two months since we heard anything about the Leonardo DiCaprio-produced Akira. This is a remake that has caused a bit of upset in our comments, as initial reports suggested DiCaprio was set to star alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

However, Gordon-Levitt denied having any connection to the film, and now DiCaprio has clarified his involvement. In an interview with MTV's Splash Page, he denied that he was going to be starring in Akira, nor will he be playing any part in Ninja Scroll (which he just optioned a few weeks ago). He made it clear that his only involvement is as producer, via his Appian Way banner.

So, where does Akira stand in pre-production? Remember, this was once being fast-tracked for a summer 2009 release, which it's obviously not going to make. But that's because DiCaprio is making sure this is handled right: "We're waiting for the final draft of the script. I'm a big fan of Japanese anime ... I know there a lot of loyal fans out there of the project and die-hard fans, so we're going to try to do the best job we possibly can and we're not going to make the movie until the script is in the right shape."

If only big fans could be the producers on every beloved property, no fans would ever lose sleep. Are you slightly reassured, now? And hey, post your Akira dream cast. DiCaprio knows you're out there, and he might just listen.

I'm still reeling from Body of Lies' remarkable box office flameout. The $70-million, Ridley Scott-directed, heavily-advertised spy thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe opened three weekends ago to third place and 12.8 million dollars, and will struggle to get to $35 million domestic by the end of its theatrical run. What the hell happened? A B-grade Jack Ryan movie with Ben Affleck can make almost four times that, and a film with this sort of pedigree winds up dead on arrival?

The answer, of course, is that The Sum of All Fears isn't the proper point of comparison. Because it turns out that Body of Lies isn't much of a "spy thriller" after all. Writing Part One of this column back in the summer, I mused that Scott and screenwriter William Monahan were going to have a tough time making author David Ignatius's ultra-realistic depiction of CIA grunt work into compelling pop cinema. I was probably right, because they didn't really bother. They responded to the problem by making the film less crackerjack and more political; less exciting, perhaps, but smarter, sadder. In doing so, they threw their lot in with the sorry batch of Iraq War films rather than Jack Ryan. It was a bold choice that resulted in one of the best movies of the year – and a resounding commercial failure.

Politically, Ignatius' novel more or less kept its head down. There was certainly a sense that Roger Ferris, the protagonist played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film, was frustrated with constant, counterproductive interference by his US-stationed superior Ed Hoffman (Crowe), but the subtext of this, if any, was soft: the problem wasn't any systemic defect but rather just that Hoffman was an insufferable micromanager. The book mostly concentrated on the fascinating (albeit not terribly cinematic) nitty-gritty of CIA field work in the Middle East.

A brutally violent tale of revenge set in feudal Japan, with eye-popping nudity, rape, and, oh yeah, did I mention the buckets of blood? Of course, that makes Ninja Scroll perfect fodder for a live-action version -- further evidence that 300 was a game-changer, as if we needed more -- and that's what Warner Brothers intends to make through the auspices of Appian Way, AKA Leonardo DiCaprio's production company.

Writer Alex Tse (Watchmen, Frankie Machine) has been hired, but Leo "is not planning to act in the film," according to Variety. Leo may not be able to open an Iraq-themed action picture, but he can still get long-gestating anime adaptations into development, i.e. Akira, and now Ninja Scroll, which is set up as a co-production with Japanese company par excellence Madhouse.

Ninja Scroll was originally released in Japan in 1993 before receiving a limited theatrical run in the US in 1996. I saw it at a midnight screening; I was very tired that night, but I have vivid memories of naked women and slashing swords. Admittedly, that could describe a number of pictures; still, if I recall correctly, Ninja Scroll really moved at a good pace, so the live-action version better not be ponderous and slow.

Since Leo is, at this point, not planning to enter the world of ninjas and vengeance, who would you like to see as the ninja vagabond Jubei Kibagami? Do you think the adaptation will remain based in ancient Japanese feudal society? Or will it be unrecognizably "modernized" into a modern-day tale or, heaven forbid, transmogrified into an American revenge fantasy?

I found myself asking one simple question during Ridley Scott's Body of Lies, a well-shot, big-name intelligence thriller that sees Leonardo DiCaprio's CIA man caught up in action in the Middle East -- namely, what is Body of Lies for? I don't mean that in the sense of asking what it supports or believes in -- although, with the film's mix of Hollywood heroics and sneering cynicism, you're certainly left with that question -- but rather in the sense of asking what it is that Body of Lies means to accomplish or communicate. Part of the film feels like an attempt at a sprawling, globe-trotting story of realpolitik and moral complexity, in the mold of Syriana or Scott's own Black Hawk Down; other parts feel like Dolby-pumped slam-bang action, in the mold of Tony Scott's Spy Game or the Bourne Films. And some of Body of Lies feels like a weird, surreal workplace satire, with DiCaprio's on-the-ground intelligence agent fighting, fussing and feuding with his D.C.-based superior Russell Crowe; if you hate having your boss hover over your shoulder second-guessing you, imagine how it feels to have your boss looking over your shoulder second-guessing you from orbit via satellite.

Adapted from David Ignatius' novel by The Departed screenwriter William Monahan, Body of Lies follows DiCaprio's Roger Ferris through a series of run-and-gun intelligence-gathering missions that start in Iraq and travel the globe in the name of penetrating, and breaking, a terror ring operating on a global level. Ferris works for Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe, beefy and drawling), who runs his section of the CIA with a true believer's fervor. Speaking to a group of political staff and elected officials, Hoffman tries to get everyone in line by getting everyone scared: "Our world as we know it is much simpler... to put to an end than you might think." Ed knows that in an age of asymmetrical warfare, America's seemingly unsophisticated opponents have big advantages; you can't tap someone's phone if they don't have one, can't crack their e-mail if it doesn't exist.

We might have all seen this coming, but then again, it is always nice to know you're right.

The sci-fi blog, Io9 has now confirmed that Ridley Scott's next project will be a feature film version of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's classic novel. In an interview with the blog, Scott told them about the origins of the project. Scott says, "I didn't choose to do it, someone came to me with it. In fact it was Leo's [Leonardo DiCaprio's] production company that came to me with that." Could this mean that Scott already has Mr. DiCaprio in mind for a role in the film as well? Rumblings about the project started back in June, when Scott announced that he was finally making a return to sci-fi -- but he wasn't giving away details at the time. As it turns out, the smart money was on a big screen version of Huxley's prophetic novel.

Written in 1932, Brave New World centered on a future in which everyone appeared happy and content while in a constant state of consumption (sound familiar?). When an outsider is brought into the 'perfect society', things get a little tricky. The message: we're all willing to give up our freedoms and humanity for a little comfort and entertainment.

After the jump, Scott talks about the script, and the problem with finding 'the perfect writer'.