Martin Scorsese may not be recruiting them for his next film, but The Wolf of Wall Street stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill have found a reason to reunite for a new project. According to Deadline, the duo are attached to the 20th Century Fox film The Ballad of Richard Jewell. Based off Marie Brenner‘s 1997 article for Vanity Fair (read it here), it details the true story of the public torment of Jewell, a security guard working at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He was initially lauded as a hero for discovering three pipe bombs on the premises, but then vilified by the media for being a potential suspect, with no evidence to boot.
In the adaptation, Hill is attached to play the lead subject, further stepping away from his comedic roots, while DiCaprio would play his lawyer. Brenner, who also crafted the source material for Michael Mann‘s The Insider, has the makings for a fascinating story, so hopefully things move forward. Hill’s next dramatic work can be seen in True Story, which is one of our most-anticipated films of the year, and expected to be released this fall.
Before we go, we have one last tidbit from The Wolf of Wall Street. As we know a four-hour cut exists, there was clearly a lot left on the cutting room floor and while I imagined most of it to be extended sequences of what we see in the film, we have word on an alternate ending. Speaking with Vulture, Cristin Milioti, who plays Jordan Belfort’s first wife, opened up about what was snipped out.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this — there used to be a different ending. I shot a lot of the stuff in the very beginning and I remember the ending had something to do with me coming back. Like, you never saw me, but it was about making it right for that character,” she says. “And I’m only feeling weird saying that because I think that’s what happened and now I’m like, ‘Wait, did I just imagine a scene where they were going to indict me and he was like, ‘No, I can’t wrong her twice.” That script went through so many changes that I don’t remember.” So, since Paramount has denied rumors of an extended cut, we doubt we’ll ever see what could have been, but thankfully, Scorsese’s ending is just about perfect.
For more on the aforementioned Richard Jewell project, see a NY Times video below:
What do you think of this new project for DiCaprio and Hill? What about Wall Street‘s alternate ending?