The Wolf of Wall Street is one of those projects that has been tossed around like a Dickensian orphan looking for a home. Back before Shutter Island happened, Martin Scorsese and current muse Leonardo DiCaprio were kicking around the adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s financial trickery memoir. But then Scorsese moved onto other things, DiCaprio remained attached and one of his other director pals – Ridley Scott – took it over. Now, however, the circle is turning once more, with Scorsese drumming up some financing to get it going again.
Belfort’s best-selling book chronicled the excesses he indulged in as a stockbroker in 1990s New York, along with a pack of likeminded corporate types who worked hard and played harder until the authorities cracked down on them.
But while Vulture reports that Scorsese is aiming to shoot the thing based on Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter’s script as an indie this year, The Playlist did some digging with the director’s publicist and puts the brakes on that idea, insisting that Marty will instead focus on making his long-planned film of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel Silence.
That script, which was adapted by sometime Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks, follows Jesuit priests arriving in 17th century Japan who face persecution when they arrive to track down their mentor and get a little preaching done.
Graham King’s GK Films is overseeing the movie, and though Benicio del Toro, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gael Garcia Bernal had been attached, the endlessly shifting schedule for Silence means they may not still be able to do it. That said, given who the director is, we’d imagine they’d all make room in their diaries if Scorsese finally got it moving.
Either way, any decision will wait until the director is finished working on Hugo Cabret…