Four days ago TMZ’s Claude Brodesser-Akner (where did the “Akner” come from?) wrote a short piece about the whacking of Bradford Simpson, the top guy at Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Appian Way. A big reason Leo fired the poor guy, Brodesser-Akner reports, is that “lots of interesting stuff was in development [at Appian Way], but little has come to fruition.” Brodesser-Akner mentions Appian Way’s interest in developing a film about LSD guru Timothy Leary , (with the idea of Leo eventually playing him), hiring playwright Craig Lucas (The Dying Gaul) and Leary archivist Michael Horowitz to develop the screenplay. Hold on, hold on…I know more about Appian Way and the Leary project than Brodesser-Akner. Leo’s interest in the Leary thing has been festering for over two years. I wrote a short piece about the whole magilla last March. Here’s the key observational quote: “There’s not a lot of focus at Appian Way…Leo is all over the map…[Appian Way] doesn’t exactly have a center-of-gravity thing going on.”