The film is based on the memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort.  Published in 1990, the book chronicles Belfort's years of fast living at a Manhattan brokerage firm during the 1980s, years that came to a conclusive end when Belfort served 22 months in prison on charges of securities fraud and money-laundering.  To describe his time high on the hog as "fast living" doesn't quite do it justice, as Belfort imbibed no small amount of alcohol and drugs, indulged in no small amount of debauchery, and figuratively (maybe literally, too) rolled around in giant piles of ill-gotten cash.  Metaphor alert: Belfort owned a crazy-expensive yacht that sank off the coast of Sardinia.

Dujardin isn't fully set to show up in The Wolf of Wall Street just yet, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, if his negotiations work out, he'll be playing Jean-Jacques Handali, a Swiss banker and world class money launderer.

The actor, who also starred in The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius' damn good espionage comedies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, would be joining a prestige picture with a cast that, so far, lives up to Scorsese. 

The director's frequent muse and leading man Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play Belfort, and is also producing through his Appian Way production banner.  Jonah Hill, meanwhile, will follow-up his Oscar nominated Moneyball performance playing Danny Porush, Belfort's best friend who becomes his business partner, leaving the furniture sales to enter the stock brokerage game.  Kyle Chandler, who proved he could make integrity and decency endlessly compelling as Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights, will portray the FBI agent investigating Belfort for, you know, corruption and all manner of financial crime.

Production on The Wolf of Wall Street is scheduled to being this August in New York.  Martin Scorsese, fresh of his first 3D family film, will be back in thoroughly grown-up territory, working from a screenplay by Boardwalk Empire executive producer and Sopranos writer Terence Winter.