DiCaprio lined up for 'I, Claudius' film role

Leonardo DiCaprio could star in a new movie version of 'I, Claudius' after a Hollywood producer picked up the rights to the famous book.

Scott Rudin, who produced 'The Queen' and 'Notes On A Scandal', is reported to have paid almost £1m (€1.5m) for the rights to the work, set during the Roman Empire.

'I, Claudius' is best remembered for the acclaimed BBC mini-series, starring Derek Jacobi as Claudius and John Hurt as Caligula.

It was first adapted into a movie by director Josef von Sternberg in 1937, featuring Charles Laughton in the title role.

The film and BBC adaptation were taken from English poet, scholar, and novelist Robert Graves’s epic novels about the decline of Roman civilisation in the first century AD, 'I, Claudius' and the sequel 'Claudius the God'.

'I, Claudius' was first published in 1934.

The Hollywood Reporter and Variety said that DiCaprio and US screenwriter William Monahan, who last collaborated on Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning 'The Departed', could be set to work on the project, although no offers have been made.

Several Hollywood studios are said to have fought for the rights for the book about the Roman Empire, told through the eyes of Claudius.