Having ditched his planned Whitey Bulger pic, Johnny Depp has acted quickly to plug the gap in his schedule, pencilling in old Secret Window mucker David Koepp’s next film, Mortdecai. It appears he’ll have company in the shape of Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor, who are now in talks to co-star.
Koepp is directing the script based on Eric Aronson’s script, adapted from Kyril Bonfiglioli’s books. Depp will be Charles Mortdecai, a roguish, anti-hero art dealer who must race to recover a stolen painting.
It’s not just any piece of artwork: this particular daubing is rumoured to hide a code to a lost bank account that is stuffed with Nazi gold. So you know he’s not just doing it for the love of art.
There’s no mention of who Paltrow or McGregor would play, but if they lock in deals, they’ll report to the set later this year, as Koepp is planning a shoot once Depp has finished work on Wally Pfister’s Transcendence and Rob Marshall’s latest musical, Into The Woods (which got some new blood recently).
Paltrow, last seen kicking ass as Pepper Potts in Iron Man 3, will next show up in Thanks For Sharing, due out here on September 13. McGregor has August: Osage County, **Son Of A Gun **and, in an unrelated firearm title, Jane Got A Gun all in various stages of production.