Leonardo DiCaprio has ended talks to star as Steve Jobs in the Sony Corp. movie based on Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple Inc. founder, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
DiCaprio plans to take a break from acting after completing his current project, The Revenant, scheduled for release in 2015, said the people, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak publicly.
The Jobs project brings together some of the industry’s top talent, making it a widely anticipated film in Hollywood. Danny Boyle, who won an Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire, is attached to the project. Aaron Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network, about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, is developing the script.
DiCaprio could return to the project at a later stage, said one of the people. He has previously said several times he planned to spend time away from acting. Shawn Sachs, his publicist, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Hollywood Reporter said this week that DiCaprio had dropped out.
Scott Rudin, producer of the Oscar winner No Country for Old Men and the Oscar-nominated The Social Network, is making the film, which is currently at script stage and will be distributed by Sony in 2016, according to Imdb.com.
DiCaprio owns his own film production company, Appian Way. He was a producer as well as the lead actor in his last film, The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the life of trader Jordan Belfort.
The actor’s movies have grossed $2.34 billion (Dh8.6 billion) in US ticket sales, according to researcher Rentrak Corp. That’s below the $6.24 billion for Samuel L. Jackson, who tops the rankings.
DiCaprio is slated to star in 21st Century Fox Inc.’s The Revenant in 2015. The film is based in the 19th century and tells the story of a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, who sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.
