Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Bay have teamed up with Paramount to produce an upcoming film that tells the story of the Rwandan national biking team.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, DiCaprio has not been set to appear in the film while Bay is not on board to direct. Instead, the movie will be directed by Orlando von Einsiedel who previously helmed the critically acclaimed documentary ‘Virunga’ that was released in 2014.
‘Virunga’ highlighted the fight to preserve the world’s last mountain gorillas at the Virunga National Park located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The documentary, which went on to bag an Oscar nomination, was produced by DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way Productions and has been made available on Netflix since November.
Appian Way, together with Bay Films, will also be producing the new Rwandan movie. Although it does not have a script at the moment, it is known that the story will be centered on Jacques ‘Jock’ Boyer, who became the first ever American to take part in the Tour de France cycling race in 1981.
The 59-year-old cyclist was famous for his healthful meat-free diet rich in nuts and berries; he was also a strong Bible-reading, Seventh-Day Adventist devotee.
After retiring at the age of 32 and winning over 40 professional races, Boyer was inducted into the US Cycling Hall of Fame in 1998.
However, having an affair with a teenager and landing on some bad business led to charges being pressed against him in the early 2000s. Sentenced to one year in jail and five years on probation, Boyer found redemption in war-torn Rwanda where he supported and trained Rwandan boys who survived their country’s Cival War during the 1990s.
He brought them together as Team Rwanda and included Adrien Niyonshuti, who lost six siblings in the Rwandan Genocide.
The 28-year-old cyclist carried their national flag during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012 and went on to compete in the cross-country mountain bike race.
As for DiCaprio, he will appear next on the Western thriller ‘The Revenant’ as he portrays American fur trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass.
Meanwhile, Bay has been helming the new action thriller ’13 Hours’ that focuses on the events that happened during the September 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya.
