Once upon a time, Leonardo DiCaprio was going to star in a movie about poor people and violent crime. The film was going to be called Out of the Furnace, and it was going to be directed by Ridley Scott. That deal never quite came together though, so eventually the film went to Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper, who rewrote it and recast the lead with Christian Bale. What could have been a missed opportunity is now a movie tentatively scheduled to be released later this year.
The fates have conspired to give DiCaprio another chance at making a movie about poor people and violent crime though, and funnily enough this time it comes with Cooper attached as the director. Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to a still-unreleased Michael Armour novel called “The Road Home,” which they’ve got Cooper signed on to direct and are hoping to develop as a starring vehicle for DiCaprio, who already has a producer’s credit on the deal.
According to the trade, Armour’s novel is about a war-scarred rancher named Creek who is trying to make a living on the Central California coast during the Great Depression. As if that sort of life doesn’t sound complicated enough, things get even worse for him when he’s asked to poke his nose around in a murder that the police have swept under the rug, and suddenly scandal starts bubbling to the surface. A story like this should not only give DiCaprio the opportunity to wear old-timey clothing, but also to arch his eyebrows up in intrigue every time he comes across some sort of shocking clue. These are two of the things that he’s best at as an actor, so hopefully this one is able to come together and start production without much fuss. We need more DiCaprio eyebrow action.