You thought Leonardo's address was the "RMS Titanic" and then on God's good humour. And that he was steaming up the car with Kate Winslet. Well, it looks like he'll be steaming up at 21 knots...or 21 million bucks to be more precise:

The long wait is over. Leonardo DiCaprio has finally settled on his first starring role since becoming an international screen sensation in Titanicand it's a doozy. Apparently eager to shed his newly acquired romantic heartthrob image, the blond man-child has decided to star in a big screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' widely panned, graphically violent 1991 novel American Psycho. "Leo is extremely excited about this script and has decided to make it a priority," his manager Rick Yorn, said in a statement. Part of DiCaprio's excitement may be due to his payday. Daily Variety reports that the young star has landed a jaw-dropping $21 million for the flick, putting him in the salary stratosphere occupied by the likes of Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, and Harrison Ford. But one has to wonder why Leo, who had his pick of almost any A-list project available (including the lead in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel, All the Pretty Horses, which eventually went to Matt Damon), settled on American Psycho? Why choose the role of a cold-hearted, sexually sadistic killera part almost sure to alienate those millions of teen-age girls who kiss his picture before bed each night? In the production, from Canada's Lions Gate Films, DiCaprio, 23, will play 26-year-old Harvard-educated, Wall Street investment banker Patrick Bateman. In the novel, Bateman is a consumer-crazed Manhattan yuppie in the Reagan-era eighties whose thoughts soon turn to torture, mutilation, and murder. His first kill is a homeless man, who dies from a knife in the eyeballs. From there, Bateman engages in 17 more murderseight women, eight men, and one child. Among his preferred methods of murder: crucifixion by nail gun, breasts exploded by jumper cables, and some truly horrifying bits involving rats and a severed head that we'll refrain from detailing. In other words, Bateman is no Jack Dawson. "To have the most romantic man in the movies play someone with no heart or soul will take people's breath away," opines Michael Paseornek, president of Lions Gate. American Psycho was controversial from the start; Simon & Schuster dropped the book, which was eventually picked up by Knopf. The publishing house was promptly boycotted by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization of Women, which decried the violence against women portrayed in the novel. The screenplay by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner is reportedly a loose translation of Ellis' novel, with the violence toned down. Filming on the $40 million movie is expected to begin this fall in New York, and the producers hope the film is finished in time to be shown at next year's Cannes Film Festival. No director has yet been tapped, although Willem Dafoe is reportedly is discussions to play a detective. DiCaprio also has several other projects on the burner, including Summer of Sam with Spike Lee and The Stanford Experiment.

-- Dan Draghici (ddraghic@sprint.ca), May 18, 1998