Spielberg in talks to direct DiCaprio in Grant biopic

Veteran filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who last worked together on 2002's "Catch Me If You Can", are in early talks to re-team for a Ulysses S Grant biopic.

Lionstate and DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle last November acquired movie rights to "Grant", the bestselling Ron Chernow biography that is being adapted by David James Kelly, reported Deadline.

Grant has been widely recognised as a superior military tactician for leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War under the supervision of President Abraham Lincoln, winning key battles at Shiloh and Vicksburg. He won two terms as President as a successor to Andrew Johnson and stabilised the economy along with attempting to remove the last vestiges of slavery, which included working to crush the Ku Klux Klan. David James Kelly is adapting the biography.

The feature will be produced by DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson.

DiCaprio, 43, who will next film Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", is attached to star in several projects in which he would play famous men in history, including a Leonardo da Vinci project for Paramount and a Teddy Roosevelt biopic that will reunite him with director Martin Scorsese.