Leonardo DiCaprio rumoured to be in the running for new Steve Jobs biopic

The forthcoming film about an iconic figure in America’s recent history has an Oscar-winning writer attached with an Oscar-winning director in advanced talks to come on board. So could the Steve Jobs biopic finally land Leonardo DiCaprio the best actor award he covets?

DiCaprio has failed to win the golden statuette despite being nominated four times, including losing out this year for his role as stockbroker Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street to Matthew McConaughey.

It emerged yesterday that Sony Pictures was in talks with Brit Danny Boyle to direct the untitled movie about the co-founder of Apple, who died in 2011.

Boyle, who won the best director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, wants to re-team with Hollywood A-lister DiCaprio for the role, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Neither has officially signed, it added.

This would bring the director and actor together for the first time since The Beach, adapted from Alex Garland’s novel, released 14 years ago.

DiCaprio was first nominated for best supporting actor in 1994 for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape at the age of 19. As well as his turn in The Wolf of Wall Street receiving a nod for best actor, he was nominated for The Aviator, a biopic of Howard Hughes, in 2005 and for Blood Diamond two years later.

The script for the highly anticipated Jobs movie was written by Aaron Sorkin, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for The Social Network, about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It is based on the bestselling Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson.

The Apple co-founder has already been the subject of one biopic released in 2013 and starring Ashton Kutcher, which followed his life from 1974 when he was a student to the introduction of the iPod a quarter of a century later. The film failed to perform at the box office and was met with mixed critical response.

David Fincher, the director of The Social Network, was originally signed on to direct the Sony Pictures film about Jobs but talks broke down this month. The director had wanted The Dark Knight’s Christian Bale to star.