Busy day for Leonardo DiCaprio today, at least in terms of announcements. Not only is he part of the team looking to rescue the Captain Planet movie from development hell, but he's now producing an adaptation of Beth Macy's book Truevine with an eye to star.
Paramount and DiCaprio's Appian Way company are negotiating to buy the rights to the book, which is subtitled Two Brothers, A Kidnapping, And A Mother’s Quest; A True Story Of The Jim Crow South. It relates a 12 Years A Slave-style true story of George and Willie Muse, two brothers born to a sharecropper family in Truevine, Virginia. Lured away in 1899 by a white man with sweets, they were kidnapped and turned into circus performers, travelling the world and headlining shows at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Shown off under a variety of guises including Martians and cannibals, their mother, who initially had no idea what had become of her sons, eventually faced a 28-year quest to get them back.
There's no indication yet on what role DiCaprio would take, but it's still early days for the movie, which has yet to find a writer. And that's assuming the deal goes through and it doesn't spend years lingering on the star's To Do list.