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At Toronto Film Fest, Scott Rudin has laid out a seven-figure deal to buy film rights to Robert Graves’ 1934 masterpiece, I, Claudius. Are Leonardo DiCaprio and his Departed screenwriter William Monahan really “circling the project” as The Hollywood Reporter queries?

The 1937 movie version of the Roman Empire tale, directed by Josef von Sternberg, starred Charles Laughton in the title role. The 1976 BBC miniseries version, directed by Herbert Wise, starred Derek Jacobi as the stuttering, gimpy-legged, twitching Claudius, grandson of the emperor Augustus. Augustus may rule the Roman Empire but is himself ruled by his scheming wife, Livia, as treacherous a woman as has ever been immortalized on film.

We don’t want to list spoilers in case you haven’t seen I, Claudius, but suffice it to say that Livia stops at nothing to insure that the throne will be inherited by Tiberius, her son from a previous marriage. Livia continues to scheme for years in a manner so ingenious and foul, that it makes Joan Crawford look like a girl scout.

Since Claudius appears to be a dolt, an idiot, a fool, who just limps around or sits there writing the family history on a long scroll and blending in with the marble statues, his politically ambitious relatives pay him no attention. He hears things, he sees things, he takes no action. While others are being knocked off left and right, Claudius is considered harmless and remains safe.

I, Claudius has enough assassinations, intrigue, and violence to satisfy everyone and probably equals anything that goes on in the U.S. Congress. The most horrific person is, as you may have guessed, Caligula, which may be the best mad-villain role ever written including Hannibal Lector — and Caligula was a real person. His torture scenes, including the disembowelment of his sister who’s pregnant with his baby, exceed anything ever dreamed of by Jack Bauer.

The BBC production’s plots and counter-plots took us all the way from Augustus Caesar through the machinations of every other Roman ruler, until old, safe Claudius is finally elevated to the throne because he’s the only survivor.

If Leo is really “circling” and rumors are true, maybe he plans on playing the title role, thereby guaranteeing an Oscar. Everybody knows that when a good-looking person either gains at least 30 pounds for a movie (Brando/The Godfather; Robert DiNiro/Raging Bull), wears an ugly prosthetic (Nicole Kidman/The Hours), plays a retard (Cliff Robertson/Charley), deaf (Jane Wyman/Johnny Belinda; Marlee Matlin/Children of a Lesser God), blind (Jamie Foxx/Ray; Al Pacino/Scent of a Woman), or deaf, dumb and blind simultaneously (Patty Duke/The Miracle Worker), amputee or disabled (Jon Voight/Comng Home; Daniel Day Lewis/My Left Foot), he’s a shoe-in for the award.

They may as well just give it to Leo now.

Since Rudin is based at Walt Disney Studios, it is speculated that the project would most likely end up there at the specialty division, Miramax.