Leonardo DiCaprio to play Leonardo da Vinci in new biopic

According to Deadline, Paramount and Universal had a bidding war over the film rights to a new book by Walter Isaacson called Leonardo da Vinci. The bid was reportedly eventually won by Paramount.

DiCaprio will reportedly produce the movie with Jennifer Davisson through his production company Appian Way, which has produced many of his films including The Revenant, The Wolf of Wall Street and Shutter Island.

This particular project is rather fitting as Leonardo has previously revealed he was actually named after the famous Italian painter and scientist.

"My father tells me that [he and my mother] were on their honeymoon at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, I believe," he previously explained in an interview. "They were looking at a da Vinci painting, and allegedly I started kicking furiously while my mother was pregnant.

"And my father took that as a sign, and I suppose DiCaprio wasn't that far from da Vinci. And so, my dad, being the artist that he is, said, 'That's our boy's name.'"

Serendipitous or what?

As Isaacson's book isn't even out yet, presently there's no expected release date for the film.