He may have last been seen as The Joker in Suicide Squad, but for a future movie, Jared Leto is headed back into the sort of based-on-reality dramatic territory that helped secure him an Oscar with Dallas Buyers Club. He's set to play Andy Warhol in a new biopic named after the art world pioneer.
The Wolf Of Wall Street and Boardwalk Empire's Terence Winter is aboard to write the script, which will use Victor Bockris' 1989 book Warhol: The Biography as its primary source. The rights to the tome were bought by producer Michael De Luca some time ago, and the man behind such films as Captain Phillips and Moneyball has been trying to get a movie made from it since then.
Warhol has been portrayed on screen numerous times, so any new interpretation of him will have to compete against not only his real history but his screen past. The founder of art studio The Factory, Warhol's work and premises attracted many in New York society, and he produced everything from paintings to movies and music. In his later years, he became a regular at the infamous Studio 54 nightclub, mentoring younger artists before his death in 1987. A hypochondriac who battled years of oppression as an openly gay man before society caught up, he could be both an expansive showman and a quiet, cold human being.
Leto will produce the move alongside De Luca and once Winter's script is ready, the hunt for a director to turn this into a large-scale mainstream movie will begin. The actor is currently at work on the Blade Runner sequel, which is shooting now and will be out on October 6 next year.