Leonardo Mauled By Bears!

That Leonardo DiCaprio just can't get enough of playing real people, it seems. Not content with his recent turn as Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can and his upcoming portrayal of Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, he's at it again with The Man Who Loved Grizzlies. In that, it's proposed that Li'l Leo will take on the tragic role of Tim Treadwell, an environmentalist who was mauled to death last October by the grizzlies he loved. A flamboyant and charismatic figure, Treadwell (whose partner, Amie Huguenard, was also killed by the bears in Alaska) was a photographer and naturalist who looked like a surfer dude, believed he had a special rapport with the bears, and courted publicity for their plight on the David Letterman Show, among others. The film is yet another in the rash of projects based on a magazine article - this time on a Vanity Fair piece that ran in May. DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, has teamed up with Columbia Pictures to develop it for Li'l Leo to star at some point. A psychiatrist could make a salient point about DiCaprio's need to immerse himself in the mindset of real people. Instead, we'll just make a cheap gag. After finishing The Aviator, DiCaprio has three more biopics lined up - Baz Luhrmann's Alexander The Great, Robert De Niro's CIA tale, The Good Shepherd, in which he'll play spy James Wilson; and an untitled project based on the life of the bloke who refills the Coke machine here at Empire Towers. Ba-dum dum and, if you have the time, tisch.