Martin Scorsese could reunite with William Monahan for Evel Knievel biopic

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

There have been several attempts at getting a film centering around famed daredevil Evel Knievel off the ground and, per Deadline, it looks as though we've got another to add to the list. The outlet reports that Paramount Pictures is in the early stages of putting together a feature film chronicling the daredevil's life and have secured William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) to pen the script. Now for the interesting part, there's hope that this project may reunite Monahan with Martin Scorsese. The last time the pair collaborated, they both took home Oscars.

Paramount's Evel Knievel biopic will draw from "Evel Knievel On Tour" by Sheldon Saltman, which covered Knievel's unsuccessful attempt to launch a steam powered rocket over Snake River Canyon. Saltman was one of the producers of that event and wrote the book with Knievel’s cooperation. However, feeling as though the finished work was full of embarrassing personal details and factual inaccuracies, Evel Knievel famously tracked down Saltman and attacked him with a baseball bat. As I said above, these are still very early days but Deadline suggests that should Scorsese get on board, he may very well approach Leonardo DiCaprio to continue their collaboration. DiCaprio and Scorsese are set to reunite once again for THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, a drama dealing with Dr. H.H. Holmes, one of America's first notable serial killers.

Sony had been developing their own Evel Knievel biopic with Darren Aronofsky set to direct Channing Tatum in the lead role, but that project later fell apart when Aronofsky departed. Here's hoping that Paramount has better luck. Martin Scorsese's next film, SILENCE, chronicles "the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to seventeenth century Japan, who endured persecution in the time of Kakure Kirishitan ("Hidden Christians") that followed the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion" and will be released in 2016.