As if working together on The Departed, The Aviator and Gangs of New York wasn’t enough Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese have again decided to team together, this time it is for Shutter Island, a Laeta Kalogridis-scripted adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel.
The film is coming together quickly as a joint venture between Paramount and Columbia Pictures with a start date in March already set and ready to go.
The pic is described as a drama set in 1954, with DiCaprio in final talks to play U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island.
For those of you wondering about the tone of the film, if you happened to catch Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone this past weekend you are already ahead of the game as that was also based on a Lehane novel. Lehane also wrote the novel “Mystic River”, which Clint Eastwood’s filmed adaptation earned both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins Oscars in 2004.
Shutter Island has been batted around since 2003, originating at Columbia until the option lapsed and it went over to Phoenix Pictures where it was punched up for about a year. Lucky for us it ended up in Scorsese’s hands and I can’t wait to see what he does with the material.
