Johnny Depp in Talks to Star in MORTDECAI
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Johnny Depp is in talks to join another film project for Lionsgate. It's called Mortdecai, and it's an adaptation of the book The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery by Kyril Bonfiglioli.
David Koepp will direct the movie from a script he wrote. Koepp worked with Depp before on the film Secret Window, but he's also directed films such as Premium Rush, Ghost Town, and Stir of Echoes.
According to THR, Depp will play Charles Mortdecai, "a debonair art dealer and part time rogue who must traverse the globe armed only with his good looks and special charm in a race to recover a stolen painting rumored to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold. He also has to juggle angry Russians, the British Mi5, his impossibly leggy wife and an international terrorist."
The book was written in the 1970s and it could end up making for a really cool '70s style thriller. Depp is just coming off The Lone Ranger which was a box office bomb. Even he couldn't save that movie.
Here's the description of the book:
Kyril Bonfiglioli's final novel follows the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai from adventure to misadventure via Jersey and Moscow to a final showdown in a Buckinghamshire bungalow of unparalleled hideousness. Tackling en route an unhealthy sprinkling of well-seasoned academics, a cryptic monk, an aristocratic Chief Constable, and more spies than you could shoehorn into a black stretch limo, Mordecai finds himself embroiled in another mission of international insecurity. Left unfinished at the time of the author's death, the celebrated satirist and parodist Craig Brown supplies the penultimate, plot-resolving chapter.