Back in late 2012 Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) put his wilderness thriller The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, on hold and began work on Birdman, which will be hitting theaters later this year. Now, Revenant is back on with DiCaprio still topping the picture, which will head into production this fall for a late 2015 release through New Regency’s distribution deal with 20th Century Fox.
[amz asin=”0786710276″ size=”small”]The film, which is based on Michael Punke’s novel, “The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge” with a screenplay by Inarritu and Mark L. Smith (Vacancy), finds DiCaprio playing Hugh Glass, a 19th century fur trapper who is mauled by a grizzly bear, left for dead and then robbed. When he survives against all odds, he sets out on a treacherous journey to exact revenge on his betrayers.
At one point Sean Penn was being courted to play one of the robbers. No word on whether or not he’s still under consideration.
Interestingly enough, John Hillcoat (The Road) was said to be attached to this script as recently as February of this year with Christian Bale said to be in line to play Glass. On top of that, a previous version was eyed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) with Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role.
It’s clearly a hot script and I like this ultimate pairing of DiCaprio and Inarritu.
As for DiCaprio’s involvement, remember when he was going to take a long break from acting? I guess he blew off enough steam at Coachella and is ready to roll once again.
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