Back in August it was reported that Paramount Pictures had snapped up the rights to Walter Isaacson’s book Leonardo da Vinci as a star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio, and now comes word from Deadline that the project has secured a writer.
The site is reporting that Paramount has tapped John Logan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Gladiator and another DiCaprio film, The Aviator. Logan’s other credits include the Bond films Skyfall and Spectre, as well as The Last Samurai, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Hugo, Alien: Covenant and the TV series Penny Dreadful.
Leonardo da Vinci is being produced by DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson of Appian Way, with DiCaprio portraying the role of the celebrated artist and scientist. It’s a fitting role for the Oscar-winner, with his pregnant mother deciding to give him the name Leonardo as she was looking at a da Vinci painting in an Italian museum when he kicked for the first time.
According to Deadline, Logan will work on the script for the biopic while DiCaprio shoots his next project, the as-yet-untitled new film from Quentin Tarantino, where he’ll reportedly portray an ageing TV Western star living in Los Angeles in 1969.
