Although he took a little break for his last film Hugo, Martin Scorsese is getting back in the saddle with Leonardo DiCaprio for their fifth feature together. It was previously thought that the director would be making his priest drama Silence with Benicio Del Toro and Daniel Day-Lewis, but Deadline now reports the plans are set to shoot another project instead this year.
The Wolf of Wall Street will see DiCaprio playing stockbroker Jordan Belfort in the film written by Terrence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire). It is based on his memoir of the same name and tells the true story of the brokerage firm operator who went from a powerful executive to a convict and ending up serving 22 months in federal prison.
Financing will come completely from Red Granite Pictures, whose Friends With Kids is doing well at the box-office and expanding wide this weekend. Expect them to sell the film to a distributor at Cannes this spring for the film that once had Ridley Scott also circling to direct.
Although Scorsese planned to shoot his next feature in 3D, I can’t imagine a story like this would be fitting. But if DiCaprio’s upcoming The Great Gatsby is in the format, I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard this was going that direction as well. I greatly enjoyed Hugo, but I’m eager to see these two come back together for a film considering their established, excellent track record.
Production begins in New York this August.
What do you think about this project being their next collaboration?