After years of trying, actor Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Oscar for his work in The Revenant in 2016. Since then, however, the Academy Award winner hasn’t acted in any other films or television programs. This will soon change with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as well as a host of other projects. The latter now includes, according to Variety, the next movie by The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro, which sounds unsurprisingly creepy.
Per the report, DiCaprio is in talks to star in Nightmare Alley, del Toro’s remake of the 1947 film noir that, in turn, is an adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel of the same name. However, despite the fact that this iteration of the story is technically a remake of the 1947 film, Variety notes that del Toro and co-writer Kim Morgan’s script is far more faithful to Gresham’s original novel. Both follow Stanton Carlisle, a con-man who adopts the questionable practices of carnival workers to swindle wealthy clients.
After learning from Zeena, the carnival’s lead mentalist, Carlisle and Molly Cahill leave to form their own duo of seemingly serious tarot card readers, spiritualists and mediums. After a while, he seeks the assistance of a psychologist named Lilith Ritter who ultimately out-swindles him and leaves him for broke. Much of this was on display in the 1947 film, though it emphasized the noir aspects over the spiritual elements that Gresham’s book was full of. Unsurprisingly, it seems del Toro and company will be revisiting these.
(Via Variety)
