De Niro is in his sixties and is on the downward slope of where he can put enough butts in seats to justify a $90 mil budget.
Di Caprio is on the upward slope of "movie stardom" and can attract the financing and requisite butts in seats.
In truth, he's not a bad actor for a "movie star," which is probably something else "Marty" likes.
Yeah but De Niro and Scorcese only did movies that fit De Niros abilities perfectly, like Taxi Driver, Godfather 2, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and he turned down stuff he knew wouldn`t fit like playing Jesus in Last Temptation (as if Willem Dafoe was any better). This Decaprio stuff though is ridiculous. This guy is constantly getting cast in parts way out of his range, like casting Mickey Rooney to play Andre the Giant, and to me it`s all because they want to ride on the coattails of Titanic. They can`t let that movie go. Leo should stick to surfer dude movies.