Leonardo DiCaprio to play Leonardo da Vinci in biopic

Leonardo DiCaprio will play his namesake Leonardo Da Vinci in a new biopic

The actor has signed a deal with Paramount Studios bosses to portray the Italian Renaissance painter and co-produce a movie about his extraordinary life.

Sources tell Deadline, the movie executives were involved in a rights battle with Universal bosses over who would make the movie, based on Walter Isaacson's upcoming book, Leonardo da Vinci, and DiCaprio's interest in the project turned the bidding war into one of Hollywood's biggest in recent months.

While writing and researching the book, which is scheduled for release in October (17), Isaacson reportedly read excerpts from da Vinci’s notebooks. Some extracts about the artist's colorful life and his creative and scientific passions will feature in the tome - and the movie adaptation.

Da Vinci, a leading artist of the Italian Renaissance era, is best known for paintings like The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa.

As well as painting, he had a number of other interests and talents - he was a mathematician, an inventor, a sculptor, and a keen engineer, while his hobbies included anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, and history.

DiCaprio's interest in da Vinci stems from the fact his mother named him after the legendary painter.

Reports suggest he will produce the epic alongside Jennifer Davisson, who he worked alongside on The Revenant, the 2015 film that earned him his first Oscar.

Meanwhile, Isaacson tasted small screen success earlier this year with another adaptation of his biographies - Geoffrey Rush starred as Albert Einstein in a TV series based on the author's study of the mathematician.