Plot Details Of Wally Pfister's 'Transcendence' Reveal Johnny Depp Will Be A Big Thinker

By Russ Fischer/Dec. 11, 2012 3:58 pm EST

Wally Pfister has become famous as Christopher Nolan's cinematographer, but he's making the leap to director with a film called Transcendence. We've known little about the movie beyond the fact that Johnny Depp will play the lead — one of three scientists — and that the story has a sci-fi bent as one of the characters "creates a computer that develops a malevolent awareness."

Now we know that the script — in at least one recent draft — features "themes of singularity, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence." There's more — some really specific stuff about Depp's role, in fact — but because the info could be construed as spoilerish, you'll find it all below.

After passing on a caution from a source in production company Alcon that "cautioned that any script summary might be outdated and is subject to future revisions," The Wrap quotes producer Andrew Kosove saying,

It is true Johnny Depp's brain is uploaded into a computer.

Want more details? The site says "the plot involves a scientist whose brain gets uploaded into a supercomputer with the aim of creating the world's first machine that can think for itself," and explains that scientists Max and married couple Will (Depp) and Evelyn have been trying to develop a self-aware computer.

Here's where things get potentially very spoilerish. Reportedly, from there,

...after a group of anti-technology terrorists assassinate Will, Evelyn uploads his brain into a prototype supercomputer. Although she at first finds the experiment seems to have gone wrong, before too long Evelyn finds Will responding in computer form. She goes on to connect Will to the Internet so he can help make further scientific breakthroughs. Will asks Evelyn to connect a microphone and a camera up to the computer so he can see and speak to her as well.

Will creates a backup of himself to every computer in the world, and furthers his work through accessing online indexes. (Kosove told TheWrap this plot point is no longer in the script.) When the anti-technology organization finds out, they try to steal the supercomputer and destroy it, but Will no longer needs the computer to survive.

At this point, Max and Evelyn aren't cast. Ewan McGregor and Tom Hardy are mentioned as hopeful choices for Max, but McGregor passed and Hardy is unavailable. Kate Winslet was also sought, and was unavailable, but that gives you an idea of what Pfister is hoping to achieve with casting.

And now, all I want out of this movie, period, is for Johnny Depp to say, at any point, "I'm a computer." More specifically, I want Depp to say it like this: