DiCaprio, Scott high on "Low Dwellers"

By Steven Zeitchik

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio will re-team for a dark thriller titled "The Low Dwellers."

The project, which has echoes of "The History of Violence" and "No Country for Old Men," is a spec script from twentysomething first-time writer Brad Ingelsby, who works as an insurance salesman in Pennsylvania.

Set in Indiana in the mid-1980s, the movie centers on a man (DiCaprio) trying to assimilate into society after he's released from jail, only to find someone from his past pursuing him to settle a score. In addition to the pursuer, a third male character and a female love interest are said to figure prominently in the story.

Scott and DiCaprio will produce the film, with DiCaprio attached to star and Scott eyeing the possibility of directing.

Ingelsby had been working on the script in his spare time and has yet to set foot in Hollywood. But he has hit the spec jackpot, with the project selling for mid-six figures to Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media after a heated bidding war that involved Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures.

The movie would be the second collaboration between DiCaprio and Scott. They just wrapped the geopolitical thriller "Body of Lies" for Warners.

DiCaprio next re-teams with another A-list director when he begins shooting Martin Scorsese's period thriller "Shutter Island" this spring. Scott is prepping the Robin Hood romance "Nottingham."

"The Low Dwellers" marks one of the first big spec sales after the writers' strike, though given Ingelsby's frosh status, he wouldn't have been affected by the labor stoppage.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter