Robin Williams and Johnny Depp Could Have Teamed Up for Neil Gaiman's GOOD OMENS
Until today, I had no idea that Robin Williams was looking to be a part of an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. This might be old news for some of you, but I just found out that the production would have teamed Williams up with Johnny Depp and re-team him with The Fisher King director Terry Gilliam!
A fan asked Gaiman on Twitter if this was all true recently and the writer simply replied with, "Yes." This would have made for such a great movie, and it's a shame that it never happened. As you know, Gilliam has a very unconventional brand of filmmaking, and because of that Good Omens struggled to secure funding so it was eventually shelved indefinitely.
Maybe one day the movie will eventually happen, but it's just incredibly sad that Williams won't be a part of it if it does. For those of you not familiar with the story, here's the book description:
There is a distinct hint of Armageddon in the air. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655,before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witch-finders are getting ready to fight the good fight, armed with awkwardly antiquated instructions and stick pins. Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. . . . Right. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan.
Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon -- each of whom has lived among Earth's mortals for many millennia and has grown rather fond of the lifestyle -- are not particularly looking forward to the coming Rapture. If Crowley and Aziraphale are going to stop it from happening, they've got to find and kill the Antichrist (which is a shame, as he's a really nice kid). There's just one glitch: someone seems to have misplaced him. . . .
First published in 1990, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's brilliantly dark and screamingly funny take on humankind's final judgment is back -- and just in time -- in a new hardcover edition (which includes an introduction by the authors, comments by each about the other, and answers to some still-burning questions about their wildly popular collaborative effort) that the devout and the damned alike will surely cherish until the end of all things.