Johnny Depp drops out of Kustrica's Pancho Villa film; Gael Garcia Bernal and Benicio Del Toro up for the role

Johnny Depp has dropped out of Emir Kusturica's Pancho Villa film The Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Seven Fingers, this comes just as the director was about to start filming! Salma Haye is still attached to star, but now a male lead is in dire need.

The screenplay is based on James Carlos Blake’s fact-and-legend blending The Friends of Pancho Villa. Here is blurb about the book: 

Killers of men and lovers of life, they fought for freedom. For the Revolucion. For Villa. In return, they received a soldier’s highest honor. They shared life–and death–with the mightiest hero in all of Mexico.

This makes complete sense, Depp can't do every movie that he may want to. The actor already has a full slate of awesome films on the horizon. It is a bit disappointing, because this sounds like a perfect role for him. 

The news comes from Blic Online, who reports that either Gael Garcia Bernal or Benicio Del Toro may step in to fill the role. It's reported that Kusturica will be meeting both actors soon:

Kusturica will soon meet the two actors in Cuba, after which he will come to a final decision as to who gets to be Villa in his new production.

It's reported that this film is planned to be epic in scope. Kusturica himself has allegedly already compared to Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. This is perfect news to me, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is one of my favorite westerns and I am huge fan of the two actors up for the role. It will be interesting to see how this shapes up. It is interesting to note that both Del Toro and Bernal have been linked to Scorsese’s Silence.

What are your thoughts on this news?