It seems director Martin Scorsese is getting back into the remakes games, as Deadline reports the director and The Departed screenwriter William Monahan are planning a new version of the 1974 flick, The Gambler.
The original, from director Karel Reisz, starred James Caan as an English professor who has a gambling problem. Apparently Scorsese’s current muse, Leonardo DiCaprio, is wanted for the lead role in this new version of The Gambler, but no deal is in place yet. Irwin Winkler.
William Monahan will base his screenplay on the short novel of the same name from Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The story finds a New York teacher so desperate to bet his meager wages that he ends up extorting money from his own mom and eventually has one of his students rig a basketball game.
This joins Scorsese’s list of project, as he’s supposed to direct both Silence and The Wolf of Wall Street sometime in the near future, as well as participate in The Five Obstructions: Scorsese Vs. Trier, which will find him re-directing pieces of his own classic Taxi Driver. Its not clear where The Gambler falls within all of that, but as it’s early in the development process, don’t expect it for a couple years at least.