Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio To Team Up Again For a Ulysses S. Grant Biopic
Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio are looking to team up on another film project together. They are in early discussions to join an epic biopic that will tell the story of Ulysses S. Grant. The movie will be based on the biography written by Ron Chernow, and it will be adapted by David James Kelly, who recently worked on the upcoming Robin Hood movie with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx.
Spielberg obviously still has some interest in exploring the Civil War. He did a fantastic job with his film Lincoln and I have no doubt that he and DiCaprio would make a solid movie about Grant. I hope this works out because it would be great to see these two talented individuals work together again. The last time they worked together was on the film Catch Me If You Can. Here's a description of the book that the movie will be based on:
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness. But in war, Grant began to realize his remarkable potential, soaring through the ranks of the Union army, prevailing at the battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign, and ultimately defeating the legendary Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Along the way, Grant endeared himself to President Lincoln and became his most trusted general and the strategic genius of the war effort. Grant’s military fame translated into a two-term presidency, but one plagued by corruption scandals involving his closest staff members.
More important, he sought freedom and justice for black Americans, working to crush the Ku Klux Klan and earning the admiration of Frederick Douglass, who called him “the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.” After his presidency, he was again brought low by a dashing young swindler on Wall Street, only to resuscitate his image by working with Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which are recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.
With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind these disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom Walt Whitman described as “nothing heroic... and yet the greatest hero.” Chernow’s probing portrait of Grant's lifelong struggle with alcoholism transforms our understanding of the man at the deepest level. This is America's greatest biographer, bringing movingly to life one of our finest but most underappreciated presidents. The definitive biography, Grant is a grand synthesis of painstaking research and literary brilliance that makes sense of all sides of Grant's life, explaining how this simple Midwesterner could at once be so ordinary and so extraordinary.
Spielberg and DiCaprio are both incredibly busy individuals. Spielberg is preparing to direct Indiana Jones 5 and West Side Story, and DiCaprio is about to start work on Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Hopefully they can figure out their schedules so they can make this movie.
Source: Deadline