They clearly enjoyed working together on The Wolf Of Wall Street, and now Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio are plotting a mini-reunion for a new project, which 20th Century Fox is putting together based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner. The studio is developing a film about the case of Olympic security guard Richard Jewell.
Brenner’s 1997 article – The Ballad Of Richard Jewell – digs into what happened with Jewell during the 1996 event. Initially Jewell was hailed as a hero for finding a suspicious backpack in the sports compound and helping clear bystanders before the bomb contained within it detonated, killing two people on the day and inuring 111 others. But soon the Atlanta Journal Constitution, working on a law enforcement tip, reported that Jewell fit the profile of a possible bomber and the media descended, camping outside the house where Jewell lived with his mother and spurring an FBI investigation. The story became a national scandal, even though he was cleared three months later.
Hill is attached to play Jewell and DiCaprio would be Watson Bryant, the unknown lawyer, more used to real estate work, who helped defend Jewell and clear his name. You can read the whole article right here.
For now, there is no director or writer attached, but given the pair’s heat from Wolf, you’ve got to imagine that the studio would want to push ahead with this one quickly.