Leonardo Dicaprio: expert martial artist and trained assassin. I don't see it, but if anyone can find a way to make it authentic it's him. Deadline is reporting that Warner Brothers has picked up the rights to Don Winslow's assassin novel, Satori, with plans for Dicaprio to star.
The story is a prequel/reimagining of Trevinian's 1979 novel, Shibumi, which featured American assassin Nicholai Hel. Set just after the conclusion of WWII, Hel is raised in Japan, trained to be an assassin, and developing a love for the complex game of Go. But years later Hel discovers that the man who trained him is being held prisoner by the Russians with plans for a big show trial over war crimes, Hel instead kills his master to spare him the embarrassment. Captured by the US government and kept in solitary confinement, he is later recruited for a mission to assassinate the Russian commissioner to China. Trained by a sexy French woman, the mission goes wrong and Hel finds himself hunted by American, Chinese, French, and Russian agents, not to mention the Corsican mob.
Shane Salerno(Alien vs. Predator: Requiem) will co-write the script along with Winslow. Dicaprio was interested in starring in Oliver Stone's adaptation of Savages, another novel by Winslow, so it's clear he has a taste for the author's work.
But let's be honest, Dicaprio has about half a dozen projects he's attached to right now, so the chances of this happening anytime soon are slim. He's currently shooting The Great Gatsby, and will then jump into Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. After that he's got stuff ranging from Scorsese's financial drama The Wolf of Wall Street to a possible remake of The Gambler.
