'Chancellor' DiCaprio on Track for Ludlum Star Vehicle

Paramount Pictures is in final negotiations to pre-emptively acquire Robert Ludlum's political thriller The Chancellor Manuscript as a star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio.

Michael Seitzman will write the adaptation, which will be produced by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher's Red Wagon Entertainment, DiCaprio's Appian Way and the Ludlum estate.

The novel was published in 1977, though the big-screen version will be updated. DiCaprio will play novelist Peter Chancellor, who is writing a thriller about Washington power brokers being blackmailed with information gathered by intelligence agencies in order to alter U.S. policy. When Chancellor's work of fiction turns out to have stumbled into reality, he ends up on a run for his life, becoming like a character from his own novel.

"Michael Seitzman's reinvention of this story captures all the twists and paranoia that was part of the Ludlum genius but also takes on the contemporary relevance of the material," Paramount Pictures president Gail Berman said.

Seitzman, who penned the untitled Niki Caro project starring Charlize Theron, had been in love with the book since reading it when he was 10. He pitched his updated take to the studio, which then pre-emptively started to buy the rights.

"We live in this crazy post-Patriot Act environment where Benjamin Franklin's warning that those that give up essential liberties for temporary security don't deserve either one are being ignored, so the subject matter seemed ripe," Seitzman said in an interview.

Of DiCaprio, he added: "This is not pap, but there really is no one better for this than Leo. The author is supposed to be an author, not an action hero. You're supposed to buy him as a gifted intellectual. Chancellor has only imagined the world outside his four walls, but now, not only does he have to be a participant in it, he has to save it."

Red Wagon president Bobby Cohen will oversee the project along with Brad Simpson of Appian Way for their respective companies. Jeffrey Weiner and Henry Morrison will supervise for the Ludlum estate, while Paramount co-president, production Alli Shearmur will shepherd the project for the studio.

Ludlum's work has been enjoying a renaissance in Hollywood since The Bourne Identity became a hit for Universal in 2002. Universal made a sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, in 2004 and also is developing The Sigma Protocol.

Seitzman, who is adapting The Sparrow for Brad Pitt to star, is repped by ICM, Industry Entertainment and attorney Craig Emanuel.

The Ludlum estate is repped by ICM and Morrison.

DiCaprio, who is filming The Departed for Martin Scorsese, is repped by the Firm and by Steve Warren of Hansen, Jacobson, Teller & Hoberman.