Leo and Ridley Build Body of Lies

Mon., Apr. 9, 2007 10:24 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Leonardo DiCaprio is heading behind the scenes while still maintaining a firm presence in front of the camera.

The three-time Oscar nominee is in talks to star in the post-9-11 spy thriller Body of Lies, playing a journalist-turned-CIA-agent who travels to Jordan to track an Al Qaeda leader said to be planning an attack on U.S. soil.

Ridley Scott, coming off A Good Year, which was only so-so, is set to direct the film for Warner Bros., while this year's Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar winner for The Departed, William Monahan, will pen the script.

This will be the third time Monahan has gone to bat for Scott, having provided the screenplays for 2005's Kingdom of Heaven and the yet-to-be-made Barbary Coast battle epic Tripoli.

Variety reports that Scott is already scouting possible Moroccan locales for Body of Lies, based on the novel by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, which will also take place in Washington, D.C., Europe and the Middle East.

Presuming DiCaprio seals the deal, he will report for CIA duty after finishing up the drama Revolutionary Road, costarring Kate Winslet and directed by Sam Mendes, an Oscar winner for American Beauty and a winner at the game of life for marrying Winslet.

DiCaprio and Winslet, who once promised to never let go, reunite as a 1950s-era married couple with two children who hide their problems under the guise of a perfect life in suburban Connecticut.

DiCaprio, who's currently gracing the cover of Vanity Fair's second annual Green Issue, is also attached to star in the big-screen adaptation of Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction bestseller Blink, a series of stories about making snap decisions and knowing when to trust one's first impressions.

Scott is currently putting the finishing touches on American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington as a powerful Harlem drug lord and Russell Crowe as the detective who wants to take him down.

A true story based on a 2001 New York magazine article by Mark Jacobson, American Gangster almost didn't see the light of day. Both Oliver Stone and Training Day helmsman Antoine Fuqua were attached to the project at one point, and actors ranging from Benicio Del Toro, Don Cheadle and Laurence Fishburne to John C. Reilly, Ray Liotta and Eric Bana were considered for leading roles.

Universal Pictures then shelved the film in 2004, only to revive it the following year and reject Terry George's (Hotel Rwanda) screenplay. Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List), who had penned the very first adaptation of Jacobson's article, was re-tapped to work on his own first draft.

Scott, intrigued by Zaillian's take on the story, signed on in 2005.