By Leonardo DiCaprio is getting back into filmmaking with Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, though if you're hoping for a tender coming-of-age story about a washed-up mid-century Hollywood tough guy then you might want to dial your expectations down. It's about endangered gorillas.
According to Deadline, DiCaprio will work with Jenkins on a dramatic version of the documentary Virunga, though there's no indication yet whether Leo will dust off his acting trousers having carefully replaced them in the back of the wardrobe after Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood.
DiCaprio is set to produce while Jenkins, whose last film was the James Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk, will write. As yet there's no word on who will direct.
If you've not seen the original documentary, Virunga is a British doc directed by Orlando von Einsiedel which follows four characters trying to protect Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Oil exploration, war and poaching all threaten to take out the world's last remaining community of mountain gorillas, but gorilla carer André Bauma, wardens Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo and Emmanuel de Merode and French journalist Mélanie Gouby fight against apparently insurmountable odds and against the background of the M23 rebellion in the DRC to keep the gorillas and the national park safe. The oil company Soco International – they're British, land of hope and glory etc – do not come out of it looking particularly admirable.
Virunga got an Oscar nomination and won a Peabody award, probably the most prestigious award for public service journalism across all media platforms.
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