Pic is coming together quickly as a co-production between Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures,
with production starting in March. Paramount will supervise production
and distribute domestically while Columbia is looking to distribute
internationally.

The project will be a co-production between Phoenix Pictures, Scorsese's Sikelia and DiCaprio's Appian Way banners. Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and Scorsese will produce. Lehane, Kalogridis and Louis Phillips will be exec producers.

Drama
is set in 1954, with DiCaprio in final talks to play U.S. Marshal Teddy
Daniels, who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who
escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be
hiding on the remote Shutter Island.

Scouting will begin shortly on the film, which most likely will shoot in Massachusetts, Connecticut or Nova Scotia.

Lehane's novel "Mystic River" was turned into a film by Clint Eastwood, and his "Gone Baby Gone" is the basis for the Ben Affleck-directed drama that opened this past weekend.

"Shutter
Island" was originally optioned in 2003 by Columbia. The option lapsed
and Lehane's Gersh reps resold it to Phoenix Pictures. The producer
enlisted Kalogridis, the "Alexander" scribe who also wrote "Battle Angel" and "The Dive" for James Cameron. Phoenix and Kalogridis developed "Shutter Island" for about a year.

Scorsese
and DiCaprio, who've now worked together on three films, were looking
at several projects to do early next year, including an adaptation of
"The Wolf of Wall Street." The "Shutter Island" script quickly drew
both director and star, and a deal is expected to fall into place
quickly.