After it appeared that Martin Scorsese had pushed corporate corruption tale, The Wolf of Wall Street, to the backburner, it now looks as if it will be his follow-up to Hugo and the fifth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese had been planning on making his next project the long awaited adaptation of Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel, Silence, but it's been bumped for whatever reason. While I'm anxious to see Silence get done as well, The Wolf of Wall Street has a story with particular resonance in today's economic climate.
Based on Jordan Belfort's memoir about his time as a hard partying, drug and alcohol fueled Wall Street stockbroker working for Stratton Oakmont, the firm which the film Boiler Room was based on. So you won't be surprised to find out Belfort eventually went down on fraud and corruption charges, spending nearly two years in prison.
In development for nearly five years now, the film features a script from Terence Winter, the creator of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. Scorsese was attached since the beginning, but when production stalled it looked like Ridley Scott might take over. Scorsese eventually came back aboard last year, and it's been shuffled around on his pecking order ever since.
Filming is now set to begin in August. Any time Scorsese and DiCaprio team up it's a cause to get excited, as they really do seem to do their best work together. [Deadline]
