Leonardo signs up for blockbuster diet

He has lost weight for the Steven Spielberg-directed true life drama about con artist Frank Abagnale Jr, who masqueraded as a variety of professional people and conned up to $6 million (£4.2million) before the age of 21.

Compared with the overweight grunge look he sported in Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York, DiCaprio appears to have taken himself in hand and got a personal trainer to return to the lean self of his earlier pictures. Perhaps the £14million he banked for Catch played a part.

DiCaprio stars alongside a similarly slimmed-down Tom Hanks who plays the FBI agent who trailed the con artist and eventually secured his arrest.

The 27-year-old actor's decision to team up with Hanks and Spielberg is definitely a wise career move. Apart from being a virtually guaranteed blockbuster when it opens in the US in December, the film could put DiCaprio back on the kind of world-beating form he acquired after Titanic.

Even more intriguingly, the fact that this is a true story gives the film an edge rarely experienced in Hollywood, which has been relying on comic book extravaganzas such as Spiderman and X-Men 2 to pull it out of last year's slump.

Meanwhile, DiCaprio's last film, Gangs Of New York, is experiencing problems as Scorsese battles it out with Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein over the editing process. The release has been delayed until December although 20 minutes of footage will be screened at the Cannes film festival.

We can expect plenty of fireworks in December as studio rivals Dreamworks (Catch Me If You Can) and Miramax (Gangs Of New York) go head to head, just in time for Oscar consideration.

And DiCaprio will appear in two movies made by America's greatest directors in the same month.

Who says crime doesn't pay?