Leonardo DiCaprio has a new project in the works as The Hollywood Reporter brings word that the Academy Award winner has signed on to headline a big screen biopic of legendary music producer Sam Phillips. Although no writer is yet listed for the project, the film will be based on Peter Guralnick‘s biography, “Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll.”
First published in 2015, Guralnick’s book is officially described as follows:
The music that he shaped in his tiny Memphis studio with artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, Howlin’ Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, introduced a sound that had never been heard before. He brought forth a singular mix of black and white voices passionately proclaiming the vitality of the American vernacular tradition while at the same time declaring, once and for all, a new, integrated musical day. With extensive interviews and firsthand personal observations extending over a 25-year period with Phillips, along with wide-ranging interviews with nearly all the legendary Sun Records artists, Guralnick gives us an ardent, unrestrained portrait of an American original as compelling in his own right as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, or Thomas Edison.
DiCaprio will also produce the Sam Phillips biopic through his Appian Way Productions, alongside Jennifer Davisson and Guralnick. Other producers on the film include Steve Bing, Mick Jagger, Ian Montone,Victoria Pearman and Rick Yorn.
