EXCLUSIVE: Leonardo DiCaprio has committed to star this September in The Revenant, a gritty thriller that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will direct for New Regency, for fall 2015 release through Fox. Gonzalez Inarritu and Mark L. Smith co-wrote the script. DiCaprio had been attached to team with Gonzalez Inarritu, but he is attached to many projects; getting the star to commit off his Oscar-nominated The Wolf Of Wall Street performance is a big development for Arnon Milchan and Brad Weston’s game plan to make tasteful, star- and director-driven fare.

Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, Keith Redmon and David Kanter will produce with Gonzalez Iñárritu, Milchan and James Skotchdopole. Brett Ratner and Paul Green are exec producers. The film will be co-financed by RatPac and Worldview Entertainment, latter of which just partnered with Regency and Fox Searchlight in the Inarritu-directed Birdman, which was just set for release on October 17.

An adaptation of the Michael Punke novel The Revenant: A Novel Of Revenge, Inarritu Gonzalez’s next film will star DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, a 19th century fur trapper who gets mauled by a grizzly bear, and then is left for dead by cohorts who rob him. When he survives, he is as pissed as a bee-stung bear and sets out on a treacherous journey to exact revenge on those who betrayed him. Sean Penn had been circling as one of those bad guys, but he won’t be in the film.

This adds to a pretty good dance card for Regency, which aside from Birdman will this year release the David Fincher-directed Gone Girl with Ben Affleck, and Cameron Crowe’s Hawaii-set film with Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bradley Cooper and Bill Murray. Next up to go into production this year are Tom Hardy starring in the Doug Liman-directed Ubisoft vidgame adaptation Splinter Cell and Michael Fassbender starring in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed, which will have a director shortly.

DiCaprio is represented by LBI and Iñárritu by CAA. Smith and Punke are represented by WME and Anonymous.

Tom Hardy will co-star with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, the gritty thriller that will be directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu from Michael Punke’s novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge. Gravity Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki will serve as cinematographer on the New Regency and RatPac co-fi production, which begins filming September 22 for a Fall 2015 release. Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith adapted the
story of a 19th century fur trapper (DiCaprio) who’s mauled by a grizzly bear, left for dead, and robbed. When he survives against all odds he sets out on a treacherous journey to exact revenge on his betrayers.

Producers are Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, Keith Redmon, David Kanter, Iñárritu, Arnon Milchan and James Skotchdopole. Paul Green, Brett Ratner and James Packer will exec produce. Hardy is repped by CAA, Lindy King of United Agents in the UK, and attorney Jason Sloane of Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.

If you think Birdman was extreme filmmaking, wait until you see what Alejandro González Iñárritu has in store for his follow-up. Shooting this month in Calgary (average nighttime low: 9 degrees) the writer-director has partnered with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy to tell the true story of Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), an American fur trapper and frontiersman in the early 1800s. After being mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead, Glass made a heroic 200-mile trek back to civilization to find the men who abandoned him in his time of need, played by Hardy, Will Poulter, and Domnhall Gleeson.

“He’s a brave, incredible actor. I’m so surprised about how good he is,” Iñárritu says of DiCaprio. “I think there’s a profound understanding of humanity that I can see through his eyes.”

Shooting with only natural light in remote locations left untouched by mankind, the arduous production extends until April since Iñárritu and his cinematographer, Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) can only shoot a few hours each day. “It’s a fun ride,” says the director, who has also reunited with his Birdman studio New Regency to make the film. (Twentieth Century Fox will release it on Christmas Day.) The Revenant continues Iñárritu’s interest in pushing the boundaries of filmmaking — an interest he developed initially on the technically-complicated Birdman–and one he furthers here as he delves into showcasing nature in as pure a state as possible. “It’s a very experimental thing that we’re doing here…I’m now addicted to doing things that can fail horribly or maybe that can give us a surprise. We are all into it.”

Inarritu brought a degree of difficulty to Birdman by staging his first comedy so it seems like one continuous shot, but he’s found a more extreme high-wire act to test himself and his cast on The Revenant, which explains why it is a nine-month shoot. “We don’t finish until the end of April or May, and we are shooting very small hours,” he said. “It was planned this way, to be little-by-little jewel moments; that’s the way I designed the production. That was both to create intensity in this moments, as well as the climate conditions. We are shooting in such remote far-away locations that, by the time we arrive and have to return, we have already spent 40% of the day. But those locations are so gorgeous and so powerful, they look like they have never been touched by a human being, and that’s what I needed. The light is very reduced here in winter, and we are not shooting with any electrical lighting, just natural light. And every single scene is so difficult — emotionally, technically. I’ve gotten myself in trouble again, but I’m trying my best,” said Inarritu, once again channeling his inner Birdman.

Shooting with only natural light in remote locations left untouched by mankind,