DiCaprio's fueled by Enron
http://www.variety.com
:: Leonardo DiCaprio wins the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama award at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2005. ::
Warner Bros. has made a preemptive deal to tell the story of Enron's collapse, with Leonardo DiCaprio starring and producing through his Appian Way shingle.
Studio is finalizing a rights deal on "Conspiracy of Fools," a book by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. Sheldon Turner ("The Longest Yard") has been set to write the script. WB paid seven figures for the book option and screenwriter fees.
Deal was made late last week based on a pitch delivered by Turner, who brought DiCaprio with him. Agreement puts the studio back in business with DiCaprio, who starred for Warner in "The Departed" and turned in an Oscar-nominated perf in "Blood Diamond."
In "Conspiracy of Fools," DiCaprio will play a newcomer to the Houston-based energy company who slowly peels back the layers to expose the campaign of greed and fraudulent accounting that drove Enron into bankruptcy in 2001.The scandal was previously chronicled in the 2005 docu "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," based on the book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
After reading Eichenwald's book and figuring out a way into the story that made it work as a drama, Turner chased down the rights through CAA. DiCaprio, who co-wrote and narrates upcoming global-warming docu "The 11th Hour," sparked to Turner's take on the subject.
"Kurt made the factual stuff read like a thriller, and it felt right to tell the story from the point of view of an outsider," Turner said. "The goal was to take it away from feeling like a staid look at a corporation and turn it into a character study of how people react under adversity."
Since February 4, 2006
:: Leonardo DiCaprio wins the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama award at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2005. ::
Warner Bros. has made a preemptive deal to tell the story of Enron's collapse, with Leonardo DiCaprio starring and producing through his Appian Way shingle.
Studio is finalizing a rights deal on "Conspiracy of Fools," a book by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. Sheldon Turner ("The Longest Yard") has been set to write the script. WB paid seven figures for the book option and screenwriter fees.
Deal was made late last week based on a pitch delivered by Turner, who brought DiCaprio with him. Agreement puts the studio back in business with DiCaprio, who starred for Warner in "The Departed" and turned in an Oscar-nominated perf in "Blood Diamond."
In "Conspiracy of Fools," DiCaprio will play a newcomer to the Houston-based energy company who slowly peels back the layers to expose the campaign of greed and fraudulent accounting that drove Enron into bankruptcy in 2001.The scandal was previously chronicled in the 2005 docu "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," based on the book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
After reading Eichenwald's book and figuring out a way into the story that made it work as a drama, Turner chased down the rights through CAA. DiCaprio, who co-wrote and narrates upcoming global-warming docu "The 11th Hour," sparked to Turner's take on the subject.
"Kurt made the factual stuff read like a thriller, and it felt right to tell the story from the point of view of an outsider," Turner said. "The goal was to take it away from feeling like a staid look at a corporation and turn it into a character study of how people react under adversity."
Since February 4, 2006