Fresh from snapping up the rights to Captain Planet, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way is in talks to acquire Beth Macy’s book Truevine: Two Brothers, A Kidnapping, And A Mother’s Quest; A True Story of The Jim Crow South, which it will produce with Paramount Pictures as a star vehicle for DiCaprio.
Truevine takes place in 1899 on a tobacco farm in Truevine, VA, and tells the true story of two young African American brothers George and Willie Muse who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, performing at the likes of New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s Buckingham Palace. Their mother had no knowledge of what had happened to her sons, and spent 28 years on a quest to get them back.
Should the deal go through, Truevine would mark DiCaprio’s first role since his Oscar-winning turn in last year’s The Revenant.
Originally published October 21, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
