One of the most popular and in-demand actors in Hollywood has just scheduled the rest of his year, with one glaring omission. Johnny Depp will now officially star in Transendence, the mysterious sci-fi directorial debut of Wally Pfister, best known for his work with Christopher Nolan. From there he’ll star in Barry Levinson‘s Black Mass, a true-crime drama. He was previously rumored for both roles.
Transcendence shoots in April, Black Mass will shoot over the summer, and with a healthy dose of press for his new film, The Lone Ranger, peppered in, Depp is going to be a very busy man. One film not mentioned in his upcoming slate is Pirates of the Caribbean 5, a film that’s been given a July 2015 release date by Disney and has been in its script stage for some time. With Depp’s schedule all but booked for the next nine months or so, it seems unlikely that movie could shoot until next year. Read more about all the projects below. Read More »
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Regional crime boss James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger has a curiously strong hold on the imaginations of filmmakers. As one of the last of a largely bygone generation of gangsters, Bulger has become an inspiration for those looking to create screen villains — Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed, for example, was based on Bulger. So was Pete Postlethwaite’s character in The Town.
The Boston-area criminal has captured the interest of Boston-area filmmakers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as well, and the two have planned a Bulger film for a couple years now. Looks like the will be beat to the punch, however, by Barry Levinson. The director is attached to Black Mass, a film based on Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill’s 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob.
Now Levinson has landed Johnny Depp — star of the Levinson-produced crime film Donnie Brasco — to play Bulger. That gives Black Mass serious momentum. Read More »
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned worldwide fame and screenwriting Oscars thanks to the film Good Will Hunting. While each has developed his own career in the years since, the possibility of another collaboration between Affleck and Damon has always been a subject of inquiry. Now, only days after Damon announced his intent to direct his first film (an as-yet untitled legal drama he co-wrote with John Krasinski) and Affleck was said to be the chosen director for The Stand, we’ve got word that the two are going to re-team for a new Boston-set picture.
The subject of the film, which Affleck will direct, is recently captured gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Whitey Bulger was a prominent member of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang (named for a Somerville, MA neighborhood) starting in the early ’70s, and took control of the gang in ’79. He fled Boston in the mid-’90s and was on the run until this past summer, when he was arrested in Santa Monica. Other producers are putting together their own Whitey Bulger films, so will Affleck and Damon be able to beat them to the screen? Read More »
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