He will use Victor Bockris’s 1989 book Warhol: The Biography as inspiration, with Leto acquiring rights.
The actor, recently seen as the Joker in Suicide Squad, will also produce the film, called Warhol, telling the life of the pop art pioneer.
He has previously been played by Jared Harris in the 1996 indie I Shot Andy Warhol and John Cameron Mitchell in the recently canceled HBO series Vinyl, also written by Winter.