Paramount Lands ‘Conquest’; Plan To Re-Team ‘The Revenant’s Leonardo DiCaprio And Scribe Mark L. Smith

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures reeled in a big one last night. In competitive bidding, the studio closed a deal for Conquest, a package for a star vehicle that reunites The Revenant star Leonardo DiCaprio with Mark L. Smith, who scripted The Revenant with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. John Davis is sole producer through his Davis Entertainment banner. I don’t yet have a log line, as this all just happened last night.

This gives Paramount a shot at another picture with DiCaprio, who is nominated for Best Actor for The Revenant and has a long history with Brad Grey and the studio that includes The Wolf of Wall Street and Shutter Island, and the fast tracked Billy Ray-scripted drama based on Erik Larson’s book The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic And Madness At The Fair That Changed America. That one’s for Martin Scorsese to direct DiCaprio in the story of one of the most prolific serial killers in Chicago history, Dr. HH Holmes, the 19th century equivalent of Hannibal Lecter, who flourished during the 1883 Chicago World’s Fair.

Smith has Endurance separately with DiCaprio with Red Granite involved, and Ruthless for DiCaprio at Warner Bros, where Smith wrote Norse. Smith is currently scripting Collider for Edgar Wright to direct and JJ Abrams to produce and he’s scripting Ghost Recon for Michael Bay to direct. He’s repped by WME, Keith Redmon at Anonymous Content and lawyered by Mark Temple.