Leonardo DiCaprio by Douglas Wight

Author:Douglas Wight
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781782198574
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2013-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

OWNING DECEMBER

The story of how Frank Abagnale’s conman caper made it to the big screen was almost as circuitous as Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Abagnale was a confidence trickster who became notorious in the 1960s for passing $2.5 million worth of meticulously forged checks in a crime spree across 26 countries over the course of five years, which began when he was just 16 years old.

The youngest individual ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, he assumed eight different identities but famously posed as an airline pilot, doctor and prosecutor. Leading police and the FBI on a game of cat and mouse for five years, he was actually caught twice but escaped custody on both occasions. When finally caught, he spent less than five years in prison but was so proficient in his criminality that the FBI hired him to work for the government on release.

Abagnale published his autobiography, Catch me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake, in 1980 and in the same year sold the film rights to producer Michel Shane for Paramount Pictures. Yet the work remained on the shelf until December 1997, when Barry Kemp acquired the rights for DreamWorks, which had just celebrated its first releases. In charge of the script was Jeff Nathanson, who had a somewhat checkered history with credits including the little-seen For Better or Worse (1995) with Seinfeld star Jason Alexander and the universally panned Speed 2. He was keen to follow Abagnale during the years 1964–74, beginning with his youth in New Rochelle, New Jersey before moving on to his time as the nation’s most hunted cheque forger and counterfeiter, with the story climaxing when ‘the Skywayman’, as the media coined him, accepts the FBI’s offer after his imprisonment in France.

David Fincher was the first director attached to the project but by early 2000, he had dropped out, instead preferring to make Panic Room (2002) starring Jodie Foster and a young Kristen Stewart. It was July 2000 before Leo was sounded out about the lead role, with Gore Verbinski now at the helm. Previously he had directed Mouse Hunt, DreamWorks’ first family film, and was considered ideal to add the necessary light touch to Abagnale’s knockabout story. Watching over him would be Steven Spielberg himself, who signed on as a producer. After a 21-year wait, filming was due to begin in March 2001.

Alongside DiCaprio, Verbinski had cast Sopranos star James Gandolfini as Carl Hanratty (the FBI agent who obsessively pursues Abagnale around the world), Ed Harris as Frank Abagnale Sr. and acclaimed actress Chloë Sevigny, still riding high after her Oscar nomination for Boys Don’t Cry (as Brenda Strong). But, just when the pieces all seemed in place, Leonardo was unable to commit because of the troubled Gangs of New York shoot and Verbinski had to drop out because of the delay. In the intervening period, Lasse Hallström, who directed Leo in Gilbert Grape, was in negotiations to step into the hot seat in May 2001 but by July of that year, he too had dropped out.

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