Back in February we told you about Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill’s movie project about the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Today it is being reported that director Paul Greengrass is looking at the film based on Marie Brenner’s 1997 Vanity Fair article “The Ballad of Richard Jewell”. The movie would center on Jewell, the security guard who discovered a suspicious backpack during the 1996 games, and was later vilified as a possible terrorist suspect.
The movie was already interesting enough, but throw in a possible director’s chair for Greengrass and we got ourselves something special I’ll bet. Hill will be taking the lead role of Jewell, with DiCaprio starring as a lawyer Jewell knew casually, “a Southern attorney who mostly did real estate closings and seemed in over his head, but he guided Jewell through a hellish Twilight Zone that went on even after the FBI officially cleared Jewell’s name three months later.”
I’m glad to hear the project is still moving forward and now that Greengrass’ name is out there as a potential director on it, it might start the gain the attention it deserves. The script is in close company as well as it is being worked on by Billy Ray, who scripted Greengrass' CAPTAIN PHILLIPS.
Can the duo of Hill and DiCaprio follow up their critically-acclaimed performances in Martin Scorsese's THE WOLF OF WALL STREET with even more greatness? That might take a lot of Quaaludes.