If we learned anything from Jonah Hill’s Saturday Night Live monologue last month, it’s that Hill and his Wolf of Wall Street co-star Leonardo DiCaprio have remained friends since wrapping up work on the Scorsese film. The two are reportedly set to work together again, this time with Hill as the main star in Fox’s The Ballad of Richard Jewell.
Jewell was at first called a hero at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, as the security guard who discovered a suspicious backpack and saved lives before the bomb went off. However, he suddenly became a suspect and his life was torn apart by the media. Jewell died in 2004 at only 44-years-old and an anti-government militant did confess to leaving the bomb.
The nightmare was recounted in a 1997 Vanity Fair story, which will be the basis of the new film. Fox acquired the rights to the story, written by Marie Brenner.
According to Deadline, which first reported the news, Hill will play Jewell, while DiCaprio has been cast as a Southern attorney who helped Jewell.
The project is in the very early stages. Variety notes that there has been no director or writer set yet. DiCaprio Jennifer Davisson Killoran are producing under his Appian Way with Hill and Kevin Misher.
Hill and DiCaprio were both nominated for Oscars for The Wolf of Wall Street, which was a passion project for DiCaprio. He starred as Jordan Belfort, while Hill played his closest friend. It’s the second Oscar nomination for Hill, who was also nominated for Moneyball.
image: Paramount