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Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio are in early talks to collaborate on a Ulysses S. Grant biopic at Lionsgate.
According to reports, he’s in talks with Lionsgate to come on board a movie about Ulysses S. Grant, the civil war hero and the 18th president of the United States.
The project is being masterminded by Leonardo DiCaprio, via his production company Appian Way, and is based on Ron Chernow’s 2017 biography Grant.
Grant was a commanding general in the army before becoming president, serving during the Civil War and helping the Union to victory over the confederates under President Abraham Lincoln.
Grant has been widely recognized as a superior military tactician for leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War under the supervision of President Abraham Lincoln, winning key battles at Shiloh and Vicksburg. He won two terms as President as a successor to Andrew Johnson and stabilized the economy along with attempting to remove the last vestiges of slavery, which included working to crush the Ku Klux Klan. David James Kelly is adapting the biography.
He won decisive battles at Shiloh and at Vicksburg in 1863, after which he led the combined Union armies, and is hailed as one of the great military strategists.
Grant followed 17th president Andrew Johnson, and while in office worked to crush the final vestiges of slavery, as well as stabilising the post-war economy.
Spielberg has form in the presidential biopic, of course.
His 2012 movie Lincoln scored a third Best Actor Oscar for his star Daniel Day-Lewis, and a Best Director nomination for Spielberg.
Spielberg has a few other irons in the fire at the moment too, including the forthcoming fifth movie in the Indiana Jones series, and a new screen adaptation of West Side Story.