DiCaprio game for biopic of Atari founder
By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Leonardo DiCaprio has more fake IDs than Fletch.
The actor will star in and produce "Atari," a project about the godfather of the video game industry, Nolan Bushnell.
The engineering student, puzzle-lover and game enthusiast went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching Atari Corp., a video game manufacturer, in the early '70s. Its first product was a little game called Pong that transfixed kids in suburban rec rooms across the country and led to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of video game sales.
Within a few years, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million. During the next three decades, Bushnell started many other tech ventures and also created Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters.
Bushnell is only the latest real-life personality in which DiCaprio has found grist for his creative mill. The Oscar-nominated actor has inhabited author Tobias Wolff ("This Boy's Life"), poets Jim Carroll ("The Basketball Diaries") and Arthur Rimbaud ("Total Eclipse"), master counterfeiter Frank Abagnale Jr. ("Catch Me If You Can") and aviator-recluse Howard Hughes ("The Aviator"). He's also attached to films in development about flashy Wall Street felon Jordan Belfort and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle is producing "Atari," which the filmmakers hope will play with elements from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Tucker: The Man and His Dream." Writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold their pitch to Paramount on Friday
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
