Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill to reunite for movie about misidentified Atlanta bombing suspect Richard Jewell

By Sean O'Neal | February 4, 2014 | 7:06pm

Aux Features Film

The partnership Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill forged on The Wolf Of Wall Street continues—like it did for their characters in that movie—to yield dividends for Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio. Following the news that the two would co-produce a TV series set in the late-’80s hip-hop scene and their recent Titanic reenactment on SNL, Deadline reports that the two will be seen together again in a movie about another maligned real-life figure—albeit this time, one who didn’t deserve it. Hill is set to star as Richard Jewell, the Atlanta security guard who reported a suspicious backpack at the 1996 Olympics, and heroically saved lives in the subsequent bombing by domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph, only to become a suspect himself. The movie will be based on Marie Brenner's aptly titled 1997 Vanity Fair article, "American Nightmare: The Ballad Of Richard Jewell."

DiCaprio will play Watson Bryant, the Southern real estate lawyer who helped guide Jewell through the subsequent investigation that yielded no evidence, yet still found Jewell tried in a court of public opinion, hounded by a press desperate for a suspect, targeted by assholes who were just learning how to use he Internet to ruin people, and ruthlessly mocked in late-night comedy monologues that branded him a fat loser who lived with his mom. Of course, since then we’ve all learned to slow down and not issue judgments until we have all the facts in these sorts of tragic situations, so this will be a look back at terrible stuff that doesn’t happen anymore. Like Wolf Of Wall Street.