Johnny Depp is set to star in Transcendence, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister. The film will begin principal photography in April.

The film is being financed and produced by Alcon Entertainment’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove and will be released by Warner Bros. The film will also be produced by Straight Up Films’ Annie Marter, Marisa Polvino and Kate Cohen along with David Valdes. Pfister will direct from newcomer Jack Paglen’s screenplay, which was developed with Annie Marter, with the most recent draft by Noah Oppenheim. Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas are serving as executive producers. Straight Up’s Regency Boies will co-produce.

Producers are not revealing the film’s plot.

Following Transcendence, Depp will segue into the crime thriller Black Mass, about notorious Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger, to be directed by Barry Levinson, with Jez Butterworth writing a new draft of the screenplay by Mark Mallouk, based on the New York Times best-seller Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill. Read the rest of this entry »

Another potential series is looking to bring Shakespeare into the modern age and onto television. This time the series would offer characters and plotlines taken from a variety of Shakespeare’s best known plays,rather than focusing on just one as previous projects have done. The project comes from Johnny Depp’s production company as well as the producers of the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo films.

The series would draw on characters and situations in a selection of Shakespeare’s plays, Deadline says, bringing them into modern situations and adding to the stories. There’s no word yet concerning which plays will be chosen to get the modern treatment. The project seems to be part of a slew of recent Shakespeare-inspired projects that includes a modern version of ofHamlet at Fox and an updated version of West Side Story over at ABC (which is, of course, originally based on Romeo and Juliet). Julia Roberts also recently sold a comedy called The Taming of the Shrew to ABC, which borrows a Shakespeare title but not the plot.

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Disney has set a December 21, 2012 release date for their bigscreen version of the iconic “The Lone Ranger.”

According to Variety, Armie Hammer is starring as the Lone Ranger opposite Johnny Depp as Tonto.

Gore Verbinski is directing from a script by Justin Haythe.

Jerry Bruckheimer is producing.

Shooting is expected to begin after Depp wraps Warner’s “Dark Shadows.”

“The Lone Ranger” was created by George W. Trendle and developed by Fran Striker. Read the rest of this entry »

Johnny Depp has a novel idea for helping Disney synergy on the next Pirates of the Caribbean installment.

“I have a clever idea for Pirates 5 and 6,” he said at a press conference for the fourth in the Disney powerfranchise on Thursday. He and his pirate cohorts are just going to ride the famous Disneyland Pirates-themed ride and, well, roll camera.

“We’re actually going to shoot it on the ride,” Depp cracked. ” Just us going around in a circle. Just close ups on everyone.” Read the rest of this entry »