Los Angeles - Oscar winner Martin Scorsese plans to direct and produce the first film ever made about the life of "Ol' Blue Eyes," the US crooner and actor Frank Sinatra, the entertainment industry newspaper Variety reported.

Universal Pictures and Mandalay Pictures secured the life and music rights from Frank Sinatra Enterprises to make the film after two years of negotiations, Mandalay president Cathy Shulman told Variety Wednesday.

Phil Alden Robinson, who penned 1989's Field of Dreams, is now writing the screenplay, but no actor has been named to play Sinatra, who died in 1998 of a heart attack at the age of 82 after a career that included such hits as New York, New York; My Way; and Stangers in the Night.

Schulman told Variety, however, that Leonardo DiCaprio was an obvious choice for the starring role after being featured over the past decade in Scorsese's Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and the upcoming Shutter Island.

Scorsese, lauded as one of the best US filmmakers, has made such classic films as 1980's Raging Bull, 1976's Taxi Driver and 1990's Goodfellas, but he only won the Oscar for best director in 2006 for the police drama The Departed after five other nominations.

Sinatra himself was nominated twice and won an Oscar for best supporting actor for the World War II epic From Here to Eternity in a film career that spanned nearly 60 movies.

But the entertainer also known as "The Voice" was best known for his music, selling 800 million records.

His fame, however, not only stemmed from his charm and elegance on stage but also for the gossip generated by his love affairs, his purported mob ties and his friendships with other celebrities and US president John Kennedy.

Schulman told Variety that the process to acquire the rights to make the Sinatra film was "complicated."

"The responsibility we are taking on to tell his story - that would cause anyone to be very careful about who they grant these rights to," she was quoted as saying. "Everyone knows that Marty Scorsese is a final-cut director, so there had to be a lot of trust that he would tell this story in a way that didn't destroy [Sinatra's] memory."