DiCaprio set to play gay codebreaker?
Leonardo DiCaprio has been announced as the likely lead for a new Warner Bros biopic about gay World War II enigma codebreaker, Alan Turing.
Entertainment news website Deadline Hollywood reports that first-time screenwriter Graham Moore’s The Imitation Game was snapped up by Warner Bros in a 7-figure deal, outbidding half a dozen indie companies because Leonardo DiCaprio “has the inside track” to play the lead role and was chasing the project.
First-time producers Nora Grossman and Ido Ostrowsky owned the rights to Andrew Hodges’ definitive biography Alan Turing: The Enigma and worked with Moore for more than a year to get the script right.
The site also claims Ron Howard is interested in directing.
During World War II, Turing, who is often considered the father of modern computing, devised the Turing Bombe, a codebreaking device that was used to decipher the Nazi enigma codes, up to 3,000 messages per day.
The gay mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist was convicted of “gross indecency” and sentenced to undergo hormone therapy. Two years later he killed himself with a cyanide-laced apple.
In August 2009, a petition urging the British Government to posthumously apologise to Turing for prosecuting him as a homosexual received thousands of signatures.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged the petition, releasing a statement on September 10, 2009 apologising and describing Turing’s treatment as “appalling”.
