Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio Could Work Together On Ulysses S. Grant Biopic

Deadline reports that Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio are in talks to team up together on a biopic of Ulysses S. Grant for Lionsgate. DiCaprio is producing the film with his Appian Way partner Jeniffer Davisson. Spielberg is hoping to direct with DiCaprio as Grant. This would be their first film together since 2002’s Catch Me If You Can.

Lionsgate and Appian Way previously got the rights to Grant, the biography from Ron Chernow, last November. David James Kelly is working on a script.

The only problem will be the schedule. Spielberg currently has Indiana Jones 5 and West Side Story as his next projects. DiCaprio took time off after starring in The Revenant, but is set to star in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Appian is also currently developing several big movies, including a Leonardo Da Vinci biopic (based on the book by Walter Isaacson) for Paramount. They are also working with Paramount on a Teddy Roosevelt biopic (written by Scott Bloom, directed by Martin Scorsese). There is also a possible film with Scorsese based on David Grann’s book Killers of the Flower Moon, with a script by Eric Roth for Imperative Entertainment. However, the Grant film is still said to be a priority.

Chernow, who will be an executive producer, is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who also wrote Washington: A Life, which inspired the musical Hamilton.

Ulysses S. Grant is a former President of the United States who got a second wind in his career. He had failed businesses and resigned from the army after being accused of being drunk. He then became Abraham Lincoln’s most trusted general during the Civil War, where he won the battle of Shiloh and Vicksburg, as well as defeated Robert E. Lee. He served two terms as President, where he was a supporter of African-American rights and worked to fight against the Ku Klux Klan.