Scorsese and DiCaprio to team up again for 'The Gambler'

Martin Scorsese returns to familiar territory with his next project, a remake of 1974's
The Gambler, and plans to work again with Leonardo DiCaprio, who will play the role that earned James Caan a Golden Globe nomination.

The director also re-teams with script writer William Monahan, who wrote the Oscar winner The Departed.
According to Deadline Hollywood, which announced the news, the original screenwriter James Toback ( Bugsy), who wrote the semi-autobiographical story based loosely on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is not pleased with the development.

The 1974 film, directed by Karel Reisz ( The French Lieutenant's Woman), follows the story of a revered New York English professor who has a secret gambling addition and gets deeper into debt, taking desperate measures to obtain money.

Scorsese's next film is Hugo, a 3D family film based on the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, with Chloe Moretz ( Kick-Ass) and Sacha Baron Cohen ( Borat). It is due in theaters November 23.

DiCaprio will next be seen in J. Edgar, a Clint Eastwood film about the secret-harboring head of the FBI for almost 50 years. It costars Armie Hammer ( The Social Network) and Naomi Watts ( Fair Game) and opens on November 9.

The Hollywood Reporter suggests that Scorsese will next shoot Silence, an adaptation of a novel by Shusaku Endo about a Jesuit missionary in 17th century Japan. Daniel Day-Lewis, Benicio Del Toro and Gael Garcia Bernal are attached to the project, due in 2013.

RC