"DiCaprio Sued Over Plum Role" appeared at MrShowbiz on April 15, 1998. It's turning into one of those weeks for Leonardo DiCaprio. Not only did the lead in All the Pretty Horses go to Matt Damon, but now Leo is being sued over a film he hopes his many fans will never see. Indie producer David Stutman and his production company, Polo Pictures Entertainment, have filed a $10 million suit against "newly anointed superstar" DiCaprio and his actor buddy Tobey Maguire (The Ice Storm). At issue is the unreleased low-budget pic Don's Plum, which was filmed over six days in 1995 and 1996, before Leo exploded onto the scene with William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Titanic. The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, alleges that the duo are using DiCaprio's newfound box-office clout for their own "egomaniacal purposes" to block the sale of the film. DiCaprio and Maguire, Stutman claims, "carried out a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent release of the film and destroy its value." The mostly improvised, eighty-nine-minute black and white film, shot by first-time director and friend-of-Leo R.D. Robb, is about a group of friends who gather at a diner one Saturday and riff on the seedier aspects of life. "Girls make me sick," DiCaprio screams at one point. His character, who comes off as a drugged-out, womanizing jerk, is quite a change from his heroic Titanic character, Jack Dawson. "He wanted to be an asshole times ten," a member of the staff told Mr. Showbiz last December. "The whole idea, originally, was to be an asshole, be on drugs. But now you have a situation where Leo is vulnerable to people's opinions." And the past months of Leo-mania have only made this more true. Stutman, who financed and produced the film, alleges in his fourteen-page suit that at the film's first screening Leo "jumped out of his seat several times, laughing, clapping, and high-fiving his friends," and "said many times 'it was great' and that he 'really liked the film.'" But, Stutman contends, Maguire felt "he did not come off as strong a 'leading man' as DiCaprio and that some of the improvisational comments Maguire had made during the film revealed personal experiences or tendencies that would undermine his public image." Maguire, claims Stutman, convinced DiCaprio to withdraw his support for the film and to pressure the producer to stop its release. In Stutman's conspiracy theory, Maguire, "sensing [the film's] impending success . . . decided to use his friend Robb as an excuse for his change of mind. He falsely accused Robb of 'using' DiCaprio." The suit states that Maguire set up a meeting with Robb, DiCaprio, and other actors in the film, "where [he] staged another performance, screaming as loudly as he could, only inches from Robb's face, that Robb has used his friends for his own personal gain and that Robb was a 'whore,' 'prostitute,' and 'success-monger.'" Stutman says DiCaprio and Maguire contacted several potential distributors about the film, including Miramax. The suit claims the pair pressured the studio by saying DiCaprio opposed Plum's release, and "there would be serious and adverse consequences for Miramax if it were to distribute the film." The twenty-three-year-old heartthrob, who is arguably the most wanted actor working today, has said that he never agreed to make Don's Plum as a full-length feature, but he denies putting pressure on the studios to stop the film's release. DiCaprio, whose long friendship with Robb ended because of the Don's Plum debacle, reportedly had agreed to perform in what he thought was a short film as a favor to the fledgling director and the struggling actors in the cast. Neither DiCaprio nor Maguire's reps have commented on the suit.