Leonardo DiCaprio Circling Todd Field's Western 'The Creed Of Violence'

Leonardo DiCaprio hasn't done a whole lot of Westerns in his 20-year career (1995's The Quick and the Dead notwithstanding), but that may be changing soon with a couple of new projects. Earlier this summer, we reported on Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, which would see DiCaprio in the role of villainous plantation owner Calvin Candie, and now DiCaprio is said to be eyeing an adaptation of Boston Teran's Western novel The Creed of Violence. Todd Field (Little Children) is attached to direct, as he has been for several years. Read more details after the jump.

Set in the 1910s, the novel follows an assassin named Rawbone and a government agent named Lourdes who cross paths when Rawbone is caught smuggling weapons into Mexico. Lourdes is assigned to follow Rawbone into the criminal underbelly of Mexico in order to dig up intel, but struggles with a secret of his own about a previous connection to Rawbone. DiCaprio is apparently up for either part, though based on nothing but the Amazon synopsis of the book I'd say Lourdes seems more his speed.

Here's the (spoiler-y) synopsis from Amazon — for what it's worth, whoever wrote it seems absolutely convinced it'd make a fantastic film:

Teran's cinematic fifth novel portrays the 1910 Mexican revolution via the gun sights of an unlikely duo: Rawbone, a hardened smalltime assassin, and John Lourdes, a Bureau of Investigation agent. The two are thrown together when Rawbone is caught smuggling munitions from Texas into Mexico and Rawbone's lawyer arranges a deal: immunity in exchange for Rawbone sharing his criminal intel. A bargain is struck, with Lourdes assigned to accompany Rawbone into the Mexican underground. The twist: Lourdes, unknown to everyone but himself, is Rawbone's son. As the two men make their way through a snake's nest of smugglers, thugs and professional killers, Lourdes must suppress the angst he feels toward his father and focus on surviving another day. While this bit of dramatic irony quickly wears thin, father and son share a sharp wit, cunning instinct and thirst for adventure that make this spy mission the very definition of a thrill. Teran's fast-paced prose reads like it was written for the big screen (Universal scooped up the film rights), and even if the moralizing about U.S. foreign intervention gets heavy-handed, this remains an intelligent page-turner.

Discuss: Which role would you rather see Leo in?