Billy Ray to Pen 'The Ballad of Richard Jewell' for Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill

Billy Ray's screenwriting career got off to a dubious start, one that it took a long time for me to get past. He first wrote Color of Night, a terrible Bruce Willis "thriller" that had me snoring in my theater seat. But Ray has since gone on to pen and direct some great films such as Shattered Glass, Breach, and writing The Hunger Games. He really scored this year with his script for Best Picture nominee, Captain Phillips, and now he's moving up to work on a biopic spearheaded by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill.

Variety reports Ray will script The Ballad of Richard Jewell, about the life of the security guard who in 1996 became a hero and then a suspect in the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. Ray will be adapting the Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner that serves as the basis for the story, detailing how the Jewell's personal and professional life was ruined by the false accusations. Hill is expected to play Jewell, with DiCaprio as the Southern lawyer who helps him through the media firestorm.

Still no word on a director, but given Ray's previous credits and obvious grip on dramatic biopics such as this, hopefully he'll be given some consideration.