Wall Street’s hot again. At least for now. We all know how quickly that tide can turn. After all, money *gaffaw* never sleeps. Between the upcoming Margin Call and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (see what I did there before?), both high priorities for their respective studios, news of a Leo DiCaprio-led Wall Street film feels about right.
The Wolf of Wall Street, a memoir by Jordan Belfort, has been in development for a while and almost got made with Martin Scorsese behind the camera and DiCaprio in front of it, but Paramount owned Scorsese and Warner Bros owned the book, so it didn’t work out.
Now Ridley Scott‘s circling the adaptation, penned by Terry Winter (The Sopranos) and Scorsese’s given him his blessing, and his star actor to boot. [Deadline]
Here’s a synopsis (of sorts) of Belfort’s memoir:
“It covers [Belfort’s] decade of success with straightforward accounts of how he worked with managers of obscure companies to acquire large amounts of stock with minimal public disclosure, then pumped up the price and sold it, so he and the insiders made large profits while public investors usually lost. Profits were laundered through purchase of legitimate businesses and cash deposits in Swiss banks.” [Amazon]
Belfort would be arrested for his chop shop-ing and sent to jail. Only to get out and write a book about it. Sounds a bit like the plot for an Oliver Stone sequel coming out in the fall. Hmm.
Hopefully everyone involved can bang this one out quick, before Scott starts shooting aliens again and DiCaprio runs the FBI for Clint Eastwood.
Would you like to see DiCaprio in this kind of role? Has he ever played this kind of role before?