Martin Scorsese considering Leonardo DiCaprio for Frank Sinatra biopic, Jennifer Lawrence as Ava Gardner
Freddie Mercury, Elvis and Ray Charles are few of the cultural superstars who were once the focus of biopic films, and they certainly will not be the last.
Oscar-winning film director Martin Scorsese is once again drumming up chatter surrounding himself and Academy Award winner and film frontman Leonardo DiCaprio. The "Shutter Island" actor is rumored to play Frank Sinatra, one of the most highly regarded American singers of all time, in an upcoming biopic by Scorsese.
Coming off the heels of a successful Western crime drama, "Killers of the Flower Moon" starring DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, there are whispers that Scorsese is gathering a star-studded cast of Hollywood elites for the film, according to a Variety source.
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Ol’ Blue Eyes’ daughter, Tina Sinatra, controls her father’s estate, and there is no word she has greenlighted production on the film. Contrarily, Jennifer Lawrence is rumored to have been selected for the part of sassy and skilled American actress Ava Gardner, Sinatra’s second wife.
There is no studio presently attached to film.
This is not the first time Scorsese has worked to rubber-stamp a biopic about the former star of a popular Las Vegas residency.
When asked about his "staggering" Sinatra project during a 2012 interview with PopcornBiz at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Scorsese said, "we're taking our time with it" and "working with the family."
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During the interview, when asked if he had any actors in mind to play the star, Scorsese said, "Not yet, not yet. How could you? I mean, it's Frank."
Now, it seems he intends to cast DiCaprio as the Sultan of Swoon. Though, DiCaprio would not require much shapeshifting as an Italian-American who has previously acted in films set in the 1940s and 1950s.
Over a decade later, it is unclear which direction Scorsese would take the script as Sinatra lived an eyebrow-raising yet aristocratic life before passing at the age of 82.
The "My Way" singer’s journey through showbiz was filled with rumored mob ties, the classic story of a boy band breakup from the Rat Pack, which included Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., and the fall of three of his four marriages.
To script the grandiose tales of Sinatra would require more than a singular biopic – or at least exceed a run-time of two and a half hours.
While the biopic has yet to hit studios for filming, if approved, fans can expect to see at least some of the tumultuous relationship between Sinatra and Gardner play out.
Sinatra married Gardner after their yearslong passionate tryst was revealed by paparazzi during his marriage to high school sweetheart, Nancy Sinatra Sr. Only a few short weeks after the married couple of 12 years divorced, on Nov. 7, 1951, Sinatra wed Gardner at a friend’s home in Philadelphia.
The pair would go on to stir a great deal of trouble in public for the duration of their marriage until they called it quits in 1957.
A Sinatra biopic would be the seventh film Scorsese and DiCaprio worked on together.