According to Variety, Leonardo DiCaprio is in talks to star in For Whom the Bell Tolls at Warner Bros. Troy scribe David Benioff is scripting the adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel.

DiCaprio -- who's toplining Warner's The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese -- is said to be keenly interested in playing Robert Jordan, the young American teacher who joins an antifascist guerrilla unit in the mountains of Spain. DiCaprio won't commit to the project without a director, however, and none is attached.

The book was previously adapted into a 1944 Sam Wood-helmed Paramount pic that starred Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, both of whom were nommed for acting Oscars.