Fresh off winning his first Oscar for The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to produce and star in a biopic about Sam Phillips, the record producer and founder of the legendary Memphis label Sun Records. As TheWrap reports, the film will be an adaptation of the book Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll, the rights to which were recently acquired by Paramount Pictures.
Whether or not Sam Phillips actually “invented rock ‘n’ roll” is debatable, but the industry titan did discover and record some of the genre’s most influential artists, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. It will be interesting to see what the ever-versatile DiCaprio does with the role — and even more interesting to see if any of the aforementioned musicians show up in the film in some way or another.
The film will be developed by DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way. DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson will produce along with author Peter Guralnick, Mick Jagger, Victoria Pearman, Steve Bing, Ian Montone, and Rick Yorn.
Appian Way was also responsible for The Revenant and other critically acclaimed DiCaprio vehicles including The Wolf of Wall Street and The Aviator. The company currently has several projects in development with Paramount, including the highly anticipated adaptation of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City and a freakin’ Captain Planet movie.
