By Leonardo DiCaprio and Guillermo del Toro working together. I’ll be honest I didn’t see that coming.
Leonardo DiCaprio is currently in talks to star in Del Toro’s newest film, a remake of Nightmare Alley. Nightmare Alley is a 1947 movie about a con man who works at a carnival and gets embroiled in plans that go awry. A world where we get to see Del Toro play around with a carnival setting is ripe for his stamp of dark imagination. Del Toro seems to be pursuing a different version than the 1947 film and possibly more in line with the original 1946 novel. That novel followed a similar plot but took many different turns and plays more into the con man aesthetic. This should play into DiCaprio’s strengths and Del Toro’s talent for enchanting dark settings.
Guillermo del Toro has made his name making quite a few dark fantasy movies including the older Hellboy movies, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water. Leonardo DiCaprio has been one to stick to more realistic dramas with The Wolf of Wall Street, Blood Diamond, and most recently he wrapped Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Guillermo del Toro has been a hot commodity since his Oscar win, so it’s no surprise that DiCaprio is interested in working with him.
It should be quite compelling to watch Leo channel a con-man…well again. His character of Dom in Inception was something of a con-man himself and it could be fun seeing him slip back into a similar skin, especially in a Del Toro imagined setting. This version of the story has been co-written by Kim Morgan. If talks with DiCaprio go well we could hear more about the rest of the cast soon.