DiCaprio Set to Star in Atari Biopic

Leonardo DiCaprio will add to his acting repertoire in his next movie, set to be produced and released by Paramount Pictures.

The film that DiCaprio has been attached to star in is titled Atari, where The Aviator star will play entrepreneur, Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Atari, which in effect created today's multi-billion dollar video game industry. Atari was instrumental in bringing arcade games, home computers and home video game consoles into the mainstream.

The script revolving around Bushnell and business partner Ted Dabney was written by Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman, and will be set in the mid-'70s (Atari was founded in 1972) when the two created such games as Pong and the Atari 2600.

Bushnell's story was apparently one coveted by many Hollywood screenwriters, but Hecker and Sherman were given the go ahead after many rejections to other writers by Bushnell because they convinced him that they could write a unique story that would satisfy the Atari founder.

DiCaprio will produce the film under his Appian Way, and will begin shooting some time after Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island wraps for Paramount.