Atari, Roosevelt and Fleming: Handicapping Leonardo DiCaprio's Biopic Future
Posted by Defamer Hollywood at 3:45 AM on June 10, 2008
It's a shocker, we know: Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in yet another biopic, this time as Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. The Hollywood Reporter notes that screenwriters Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold their script Atari to Paramount on Friday, with DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle producing the story of "the godfather of the video game industry," whom we'd probably like just fine were he not also the shithead who foisted the Chuck E. Cheese chain on an unsuspecting American public.
But we digress! DiCaprio's biographical obsessions — from his baby-faced turn as Tobias Wolff (This Boy's Life) to his overbearing Howard Hughes (The Aviator) to his beguiling swindler Frank Abagnale Jr. (Catch Me if You Can) — have us reconsidering his slate of upcoming roles. Is Leo actually determined to spend the next five years portraying video game mavens, ex-presidents, spy novelists and Wall Street crooks? And will they get him any closer to the Oscar such roles seem to court? Follow the jump for our convenient oddsmaking guide to Leo's biopic prospects.
PROJECT: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
BACKGROUND: The eldest of DiCaprio's gestating biopics, Roosevelt was announced back in Sept. 2005, with Martin Scorsese set to direct a script based on Edmund Morris's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. Then they did The Departed and Shutter Island (and announced another collaboration in-between; see below). Roosevelt, meanwhile, remains dead.
OSCAR-PANDERING?: Very much (and very expensively) so, but not any worse than, say, The 11th Hour.
ODDS IT'LL BE MADE WITH LEO: 75-1 before 2012; 50-1 afterward.
PROJECT: The Wolf of Wall Street
BACKGROUND: DiCaprio optioned high-flying (literally — he once piloted his chopper while strung out on coke) finance kingpin Jordan Belfort's rags-to-riches-to-prison memoir before its publication in 2007. Again, Scorsese was touched to direct.
OSCAR-PANDERING?: Leo already did showy with Howard Hughes; the Academy is over it.
ODDS IT'LL BE MADE WITH LEO: 20-1. We're much more interested, though, in whether or not Tommy Chong will play himself as Belfort's real-life cellmate.
PROJECT: Fleming
BACKGROUND: Appian Way last month jumped aboard the biopic of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, which will focus in part on the author's Naval Intelligence background during WWII. DiCaprio is reportedly bringing in a new writer, though, which could mean anything from "Let's play up Fleming's spanking fetish" to "Let's take this off the market just in case."
OSCAR-PANDERING?: Only if Leo masters Fleming's accent and gets to spank Kate Winslet.
ODDS IT'LL BE MADE WITH LEO: 100-1. Seriously — have you ever seen Ian Fleming?
PROJECT: Atari
BACKGROUND: Announced this weekend, DiCaprio signed on to produce and star as Nolan Bushnell, the heartthrob who brought you Pong.
OSCAR-PANDERING?: Only if the Academy remembers Atari is a brand and not Leo's character. The Chuck E. Cheese thing is a problem as well.
ODDS IT'LL BE MADE WITH LEO: 1-4. And Uwe Boll will direct.

Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
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Fama Est
Posted 5:19 AM 10/6/08
DVD Extra idea: Boll vs. Cheese, 12 rounds of mouse-punching fury. Manola Dargis can be in the mouse suit.
Fama Est
bess marvin, girl detective
Posted 5:13 AM 10/6/08
the only good film la dicaprio has done in his adult life is the departed because it was the first time i didn't see him as the boy from titanic. why he commands so much money is, like many things in this life, a mystery to me.
bess marvin, girl detective
CourageousCoward
Posted 4:27 AM 10/6/08
Odds Leo will skip the awards ceremony - if you have to ask...
CourageousCoward
RocketRockit
Posted 4:15 AM 10/6/08
I wonder if they will cover what Bushnell is doing now? [www.uwink.com]
RocketRockit
Cam/ron
Posted 4:05 AM 10/6/08
@Cam/ron: But then again, if the movie is strictly about the company, then we'll have to endure the horrors of the Atari Jaguar.
Cam/ron
Cam/ron
Posted 4:03 AM 10/6/08
@Old No.7: Bushnell was actually long gone from Atari by the time they upchucked the ET game.
Cam/ron
Old No.7
Posted 3:58 AM 10/6/08
Can't wait for the scene where they sell out to Time Warner, they develop the "E.T. Extra Terrestrial" game, and the whole thing goes down the shitter.
Yes, I am a 40 year-old geek, why do you ask?
Old No.7
Cam/ron
Posted 3:55 AM 10/6/08
LOL, there will be the magical scene in "Atari" where Leo shares his vision of singing animatronics, plastic ball pits, and pizza that's bland enough for every child to love.
Cam/ron
el smrtmnky
Posted 10:12 AM 10/6/08
he is on a historical kick! he was also Jim Carrol in The Basketball Diaries, Rimbaud in Total Eclipse and Louis XIV in The Man in the Iron Mask.
el smrtmnky
WGARefugee
Posted 4:16 PM 14/6/08
How about Robert Downey in the Commodore Amiga story? Any takers?
WGARefugee
allnewimprovedicarus
Posted 5:44 AM 15/6/08
In defense of Mr. Cheese, why the hate? Pizza, video games, and skee ball. Um, yes please. Unless someone loosed a turd in the ball pit?
allnewimprovedicarus