After taking a bit of a break between the grueling The Revenant, which earned him his first Oscar, and the highly-anticipated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it looks like Leonardo DiCaprio is not waiting as long to decide his next role. The actor is set to team with Guillermo del Toro for his next film following his Best Picture winner The Shape of Water.
Variety reports the film, co-written by the director and Kim Morgan, is Nightmare Alley. Once again teaming with Fox Searchlight, the film is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s novel, which was also made into a 1947 film by Edmund Goulding starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell. That film starred a con man who joined a traveling circus featuring a female mind-reader and her alcoholic husband. When her husband dies, she teams up with the con man and manipulates him.
Promising to be a devilishly fun co-leading role, del Toro is currently casting now ahead of a fall shoot. If all things go according to plan, we’ll likely see this premiere next year. In the meantime, check out the entire 1947 film below.
Update: It’s also been reported by THR‘s Borys Kit that DiCaprio actually passed on new scripts by Paul Thomas Anderson and Alejandro González Iñárritu in order to star in Guillermo del Toro’s film. So, in good news, it sounds like PTA’s Phantom Thread follow-up could start shooting this year–once he finds a potential new star, of course.