Leonardo DiCaprio will reportedly play Frank Sinatra in an upcoming biopic directed by Martin Scorsese, but it’s not the next project on their to-do lists. The project was reported by Variety on Wednesday, but insiders say that Scorsese plans to make to film Life of Jesus, based on the 1973 book by Shūsaku Endō. After that, the 81-year-old director will turn his eye towards Sinatra, with DiCaprio taking center stage.
Sources familiar with the project said that so far, Sinatra’s daughter Tina has not given her blessing to Scorsese’s proposed biopic. That could be a problem, as Tina Sinatra controls her father’s estate. However, the director has moved forward by casting DiCaprio as Sinatra and Jennifer Lawrence as his second wife, Ava Gardner. Studios and streamers are already circling this project for the star power alone, and right now Sony is reportedly the frontrunner to land the job.
Francis Albert Sinatra was born in 1915 and became one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century. He began his career in the swing era, and helped steer the course of popular music throughout the century with jazz, big band, and “easy listening” among his most common labels.
His daughter Tina was born during his first marriage to Nancy Sinatra, and it’s a commonly held belief that Ava Gardner knowingly and intentionally broke up that marriage in 1951 when Tina was just three years old. So far, it’s unclear if Scorsese’s film would focus on one particular period of Sinatra’s life or if it would be an adaptation of an existing biography.
As for Life of Jesus, Scorsese reportedly intends to finance that project independently, side-stepping the studio system altogether and therefore answering to no one but himself. Scorsese’s 2016 novel Silence was also based on a novel by Endō, and that one was independently financed as well.
Sources say that Scorsese wants to reunite with Silence star Andrew Garfield on Life of Jesus, and that Miles Teller is in consideration for the movie as well. It’s unclear if one of them will play the titular role, though Variety notes that both men are a few years older than Jesus was when he died at the age of 33.
Scorcese’s next two projects are definitely ambitious and may need to undergo some changes before they make it to the big screen. In the meantime, you can stream Killers of the Flower Moon on Apple TV+.