Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way production company has picked up the rights to "Fleming", a biopic about James Bond author Ian Fleming reports The Los Angeles Times.

Damian Stevenson's script explores the British journalist and WW2 Naval Commander best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling his adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories.

After studying language in Austria, Munich and Geneva, Fleming became a journalist for Reuters and worked in Moscow for several years. During the Second World War, he became the personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and came up with two ambitious plans including luring Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess to Scotland, and plans to protect Gibraltar in case of a Spanish defection to the Nazis.

The colorful life served as inspiration for the various characters and backgrounds of Fleming's 007 works, the first being "Casino Royale" published in 1953 when Fleming was 45. The film's events are framed by Fleming's Jamaica wedding in 1952, just before 'Royale' was published.

Producer Andrew Lazar ("Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," "Get Smart") says that the film will be quite different from the Bond movies - "There are a lot of different ways to crack biopics, but we're not trying to emulate a Bond movie . . . The idea that this guy's life informed the James Bond character is pretty fascinating."

That may not last though as DiCaprio apparently wants to take the script in a different direction with a new writer.