It’s a pretty good time to be screenwriter Jason Hall. While his first produced script was “Spread,” that movie starring Ashton Kutcher, he has quickly moved onto much bigger and much better things. His script for “American Sniper” has none other than Steven Spielberg attached to direct, with Bradley Cooper to star, while Spielberg is also going to be looking at Hall’s adaptation of David Finkel‘s forthcoming book “Thank You For Your Service” as possible reteam material with Daniel Day-Lewis. Now Hall has another screenplay that is spurring the interest of more A-list talent.
Warner Bros. has snapped up Hall’s pitch for “Rasputin,” with Leonardo DiCaprio to produce and star. The famed Russian mystic was also a wildly controversial person, who seemed to gain more enemies as prominence grew. Known equally for his supposed powers as his sexual proclivities and other unorthodox behaviors, he was assassinated at the age of 47. The larger than life figure of course inspired movies about his life, the most recent efforts being the 2011 French TV flick “Raspoutine” with Gerard Depardieu as the title character, and 1996’s HBO effort “Rasputin” with Alan Rickman in the lead. So yeah, there’s room for another version. And it’s easy to see the appeal: period costuming, eccentric character, accents!
Of course, this is all a long, long way off, as a script needs to be written, DiCaprio needs to approve, a director needs to be found and DiCaprio still needs to be interested after all that happens, and hopefully not too distracted by any of the other projects that come his way. Still, an interesting prospect to consider. [Deadline]
