Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play Leonardo da Vinci

In a brilliant case of synchronicity, Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play Leonardo da Vinci in a new movie.

The Paramount studio has just won a bidding war for the rights to the forthcoming book ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ by the eminent biographer and journalist Walter Isaacson, known for his books on Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs.

Though the book isn’t due out until October, Paramount is said to have paid a seven figure sum to secure the option to make it into a movie.

Deadline reports that DiCaprio will star in the movie, and produce it through his Appian Way company.

But the best part is, obviously, that DiCaprio will star as his namesake, the Renaissance polymath known for his genius in the fields of art and science.

So goes the story that DiCaprio’s mother felt her unborn child kick for the very first time while she was looking at a painting by da Vinci at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence in 1974.

And so Leonardo’s name was chosen.

It’ll not be the first time that Isaacson’s books have reached the screen – his book ‘Steve Jobs’ was the basis for Danny Boyle’s biopic starring Michael Fassbender in 2015.

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