Robert Zemeckis wants Leonardo DiCaprio to star in his memory loss movie, please

By Mike Vago | October 29, 2013 | 4:28pm

Aux Features Film

Robert Zemeckis has plans to make a fictional adaptation of Jeff Malmberg's acclaimed 2010 documentary Marwencol. The original film's subject, Mark Hogancamp, was beaten nearly to death by a gang of teenagers. Upon awakening from a coma, he remembered almost nothing about his previous life. As therapy, he built a miniature WWII-era Belgian village in his backyard, populated by figures he made to resemble himself, his friends, and even his attackers. Hogancamp uses the figures to act out an idyllic small town life, but violence inevitably creeps into the fantasy world he's constructed.

For his dramatic retelling of the story, Zemeckis has enlisted screenwriter Caroline Thompson, best known for Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, who seems ideally suited to telling the story of a loner who lives in a fantasy world with darkness constantly on the periphery. Casting has not yet begun, but Zemeckis has announced he would like to sign on Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead. (Also, he would like a jetpack. And some ice cream. And a pony.) Stay tuned to see either another critically acclaimed film starring DiCaprio, or another insight into which actors get handed the roles that were turned down by DiCaprio these days.