Leonardo DiCaprio’s Volkswagen film lands Edward Berger to direct
Edward Berger (Patrick Melrose) has been tapped to direct Leonardo DiCaprio’s upcoming film about the Volkswagen Clean Diesel crisis, according to Collider.
The director is also attached to the upcoming Rio, which co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Sundance TV’s Deutschland 83 and multiple episodes of the AMC series The Terror. Berger also directed the acclaimed 2014 drama Jack, as well as All My Loving, which was released this year.
Oscar winner Charles Randolph (The Big Short) will be penning the script, with DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson producing via their Appian Way banner. The company teamed with Paramount to acquire the book Faster Higher Farther: The Inside Story of the Volkswagen Scandal just after Norton had agreed to publish it.
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The scandal became news in late 2015, and ended up leading to the resignation of Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn over allegations that he knew the company had been placing illegal software, known as “defeat devices,” in their Clean Diesel cars. These devices would turn on the emission controls in order to deceptively meet the EPA standards. As a result, VW’s stock was sent plunging, and cost the company somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 billion.
In addition to being an Oscar-winning producer, DiCaprio is a passionate environmental activist, so this story seems like a natural fit for him to help tell. At this time, there have been no announcements when production is planned to begin.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
