Update: The press release announcing the picture says “an acclaimed director who has previously worked with Leonardo has expressed interest in directing the film”. So let the guessing games begin, but a Christopher Nolan-directed JFK tale? Yeah, we’d be there.
Leonardo DiCaprio is quickly filling up his post-“Inception” slate. He’s shooting Clint Eastwood‘s “Hoover” early in the new year, he’s got Baz Luhrmann‘s “The Great Gatsby” with Carey Mulligan potentially on deck, and he also recently acquired the rights to true life serial killer book “The Devil In The White City” as a possible starring vehicle. But he’s now eyeing yet another presidential, based-on-a-true-story flick.
Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in and produce the JFK assassination film “Legacy Of Secrecy” based on the book by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann. DiCaprio will play FBI informant Jack Van Laningham in the film, which will put forth the theory “that Mafia godfather Carlos Marcello confessed to Van Laningham to having ordered JFK’s assassination. As part of a dangerous and long-secret undercover operation, the FBI positioned Van Laningham to become confidant to Marcello, who ruled organized crime in Louisiana and most of Texas for decades.”
We can’t say we’re too thrilled by the prospect of this one if only because JFK assassination books, films and documentaries, both dodgy and respectable, seem to come out every week with a different theory. But obviously, the story is one that will forever endure in the American psyche, and it’s an event that is often cited as a critical turning point in American history.
This one is still a bit of a way off. No writer has been hired yet and Warner Bros. is eying the project as a potential 2013 release to coincide with 50th anniversary of the assassination. If you can’t wait until then to get your conspiracy fix, there’s always Oliver Stone‘s electrifying “JFK” which spins pretty much every theory out there with dazzling showmanship that is undeniably compelling and remains, for now, the go-to standard of JFK assassination pics. [Variety]