Leonardo DiCaprio may star in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It's been about a year and a half since we heard that Guillermo del Toro would be writing and directing a remake of the 1947 film NIGHTMARE ALLEY – an announcement that was made even before his film THE SHAPE OF WATER was nominated for a slew of Academy Awards. THE SHAPE OF WATER went on to win Oscars in a handful categories, including Best Picture and Best Achievement in Directing. Now it's looking like NIGHTMARE ALLEY will indeed be del Toro's first post-Oscar directorial effort, and one of his fellow Oscar winners is in talks to star in the film.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who won his Oscar for THE REVENANT (after being nominated four times before), is up for the role of 

an ambitious young con-man who teams up with a female psychiatrist who is even more corrupt than he is. At first, they enjoy success fleecing people with their mentalist act, but then she turns the tables on him, out-manipulating the manipulator.

Based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the 1947 version of NIGHTMARE ALLEY was directed by Edmund Goulding from a screenplay by Jules Furthman. This new adaptation has been written by del Toro and Kim Morgan.

Fox Searchlight has the worldwide distribution rights to the new NIGHTMARE ALLEY. The film is being produced and financed by del Toro and J. Miles Dale with TSG Entertainment.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY is set to begin filming this fall. In the meantime, del Toro is also working with The Jim Henson Company on a stop-motion animated take on PINOCCHIO that will be released through the Netflix streaming service sometime in 2021.

Anything del Toro makes will always have our attention, so we'll be keeping an eye on NIGHTMARE ALLEY as it heads toward production.