Following a heated bidding war over Walter Isaacson's "Leonardo da Vinci" last year, Paramount Pictures came out on top and now Deadline has reported that the studio has tasked John Logan (SKYFALL) with penning the script. It's expected that the project is being developed as a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio, who, should it move forward, would star as the fabled artist/inventor.
This wouldn't be the first time that John Logan and Leonardo DiCaprio will have worked together, as Logan also penned THE AVIATOR, the Martin Scorsese flick which starred DiCaprio as Howard Hughes. The project does have a special significance to Leonardo DiCaprio, who got his first name after his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting when he first kicked. The Leonardo da Vinci project is still a ways off, but John Logan will begin tackling the script while DiCaprio stars in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming film. In the as-yet-untitled film, which takes place against the backdrop of the Manson Family murders in 1969, DiCaprio will play an actor who had his own Western TV show, but when his attempt to transition in movies doesn't work out, he contemplates a move to Italy to take advantage of the spaghetti western movement.
The official synopsis of "Leonardo da Vinci" via Amazon:
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.
His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history’s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo’s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions. Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.