Leonardo DiCaprio to star in Inarritu thriller ‘The Revenant’

Harrowing survival stories have provided the backdrop for a number of star turns in recent years, including “Captain Phillips,” “All Is Lost” and “Gravity.” Now Leonardo DiCaprio is getting in on the act.

DiCaprio’s next film will be “The Revenant,” a gritty 1820s revenge thriller to be directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Babel”) for New Regency and released by 20th Century Fox.

Based on the novel by Michael Punke, “The Revenant” tells the story of Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a fur trapper who is robbed and left for dead by his cohorts after being mauled by a grizzly bear. After surviving against all odds, Glass sets out on a mission of vengeance against the men who betrayed him.

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Inarritu will direct from a script by him and Mark L. Smith. The film is scheduled to begin production in September, with a fall 2015 release planned.

The role of a bloodthirsty frontiersman marks a left turn for DiCaprio, who is coming off his Oscar-nominated performance as the shady stockbroker Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and for Inarritu, whose upcoming movie “Birdman,” opening in October, is a quirky character piece about a struggling actor (Michael Keaton) trying to mount a Broadway show.

DiCaprio and Inarritu have been associated with the project for some years, but such associations aren’t uncommon, especially for DiCaprio.

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In recent months, the actor has also been linked to a movie about Richard Jewell, the man falsely accused of being the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bomber, and the crime tale “Blood on Snow,” based on a pair of books by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo.

Inarritu, meanwhile, had been linked to a live-action adaptation of “The Jungle Book” for Warner Bros. but left the project, which will now be helmed by Andy Serkis.

Now the current course is set for both DiCaprio and Inarritu.

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Twitter: @ogettell