The Bottom Line: Leo Soars!

Leo Mania isn’t as manic as it was when Titanic set sail on its record-breaking voyage at the box office.

And that’s the best gift Leonardo DiCaprio could receive for his recent 30th birthday.

DiCaprio wisely refused to allow his status as a teenybopper heartthrob to dictate his career choices. He works when he wants to work, and continues to take intriguing roles in films that often lack commercial appeal.

Now the still-boyish DiCaprio is making a transition to adult roles with The Aviator. He plays Howard Hughes as a crazed genius manchild charting unknown territory in the film and aviation industries. His second shot at an Oscar is all but assured when the nominations are announced next month.

The more Oscar nominations, the more money The Aviator will make. It needs that boost at the box office. DiCaprio‘s still needs to prove whether he’s the next Tom Cruise.

DiCaprio‘s sole pre-Titanic hit: 1996’s Romeo + Juliet. Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers–as tarted up by director Baz Luhrmann–made 13-year-old girls go weak at the knees at the sight of lovely Leo.

Titanic (1997) only helped DiCaprio so much. The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) capitalized modestly on Titanic‘s triumphant run at the box office. His cameo in Celebrity (1998) failed to earn Woody Allen‘s comedy fame or fortune.

	DiCaprio’s Box Office Highs
		1. Titanic   $600.7M
		2. Catch Me If You Can     $164.6 M
		3. Gangs Of New York   $77.8M
		4. The Man In the Iron Mask Sun   $59.9M
		5. Romeo + Juliet   $46.3M

Prior to Titanic, DiCaprio pursued quality roles, not stardom. He’s seemingly followed in the footsteps of Johnny Depp, his What’s Eating Gilbert Grape costar, who early in his career refused roles that exploited his Tiger Beat-pinup good looks.

So DiCaprio shot heroin in The Basketball Diaries, bedded David Thewlis in Total Eclipse, and issued duels in Sam Raimi‘s quirky The Quick and the Dead (all 1995). They all flopped, as did the tearjerker Marvin’s Room (1996).

In 2000, DiCaprio headed to The Beach, a dark R-rated thriller directed by Trainspotting‘s Danny Boyle. With DiCaprio‘s underage fans shut out, The Beach failed to woo audiences on the scale of Romeo + Juliet.

Then came Gangs of New York (2002). Like Titanic, Martin Scorsese‘s 19th-century mob epic went wildly over budget and saw its release delayed by a year. Unlike Titanic, Gangs of New York‘s graphic violence hampered its chances at the box office. DiCaprio also was terribly miscast as a grubby young Irish hoodlum.

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Understandably, audiences preferred to catch a handsome and cocksure Leo in Catch Me if You Can, released five days after Gangs of New York.

If Catch Me If You Can overshadowed Gangs of New York, it did not sour DiCaprio on reuniting with Scorsese for The Aviator. But do audiences really want to see DiCaprio as a neat-freak billionaire with a passion for airplanes and the hots for Hollywood starlets?

The answer should be a resounding yes when The Aviator flies into theaters nationwide on Christmas Day. DiCaprio‘s colorful portrayal of the eccentric Hughes landed him a well-deserved Golden Globe, and The Aviator represents Scorsese‘s best chance to take home an Oscar if nominated. That all equals money in the bank.

	DiCaprio’s Box Office Lows
		1. Total Eclipse   $340,139
		2. The Basketball Diaries     $2.3 M
		3. This Boy’s Life   $4.1M
		4. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape Sun   $10 M
		5. Marvin’s Room   $12.8M

This also bodes wells for their next collaboration, The Departed, a remake of the gripping Japanese thriller Infernal Affairs. He plays an undercover cop–posing as an Irish-American gangster–out to nab Matt Damon, a member of the same gang who has infiltrated the Boston police.

But the long-gestating Alexander the Great appears to be dead. That’s actually a good sign–with Baz Luhrmann at the helm, this sword-and-sandals epic threatened to be campier than Oliver Stone‘s Alexander.
DiCaprio also just dropped out of Robert De Niro‘s The Good Shepherd, which retells the history of the CIA, only to be replaced by Damon.

So maybe DiCaprio will star in Bombshell, as a nuclear physicist who spied for the Soviet Union. He also been mentioned to play John Carter in the sci-fi blockbuster A Princess of Mars. This could represent a great opportunity for DiCaprio show off his best Cruise-like moves as an action hero.

The Bottom Line: DiCaprio might have proclaimed “I’m king of the world” in Titanic, but he’s yet to establish himself as king of the box office. He could be as popular as Tom Cruise and as respected as Johnny Depp if he continues to take challenging roles in films that do not compromise his integrity. In Scorsese, DiCaprio appears to have found a director eager to help him shake loose his boyish roles of the past. That should ensure DiCaprio‘s career–at least for now–won’t sink like the Titanic.