Jordan Belfort

He would have played the FBI agent, right?

So it came down to Leo and Brad Pitt both wanted the book.

There was a bidding war between the two of them.

So, like, over a weekend, bidding went up and up and up.

Each side said, whatever they pay you, we'll pay you 10% more.

So, the price of the sale kept going up and up.

And finally, Leo calls and goes, like, I have Martin Scorsese attached.

He's going to direct.

Marty read the book, loves it, too.

He'll direct.

And I was like... And by the way, the truth is I always loved Leo.

Like, I thought Leo was the perfect person.

You know, I love Brad Pitt, too, but Leo was... No, you did...

And so I sold it to Warner Brothers with Leo on behalf of Leo and Marty.

Right.

And then a man named Terrence Winter, a brilliant screenwriter, adapted the book.

We spent a lot of time together and he took my book and like put it into a format that became the movie.

There's many changes after, but it was the movie that that first script and everyone loved this first script so much.

It was in 2000, and the book hadn't even come out yet.

The book was going to come out in September, and now we're like in June, and everyone loves the script.