By As you can see in the image above, Johnny Depp dresses like a modern day warlock at the best of times and has the power to make ladies’ underpants disappear, so Warner Bros. look like they’re onto a doozy by aiming to cast him in the lead role for an adaptation of Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats The Devil. The novel is a fictionalised account of real-life magician Charles Carter’s troubles when President Warren G. Harding dies shortly after participating in one of his tricks.
The story’s suspense comes from the Prestige-esque question of what is reality and what is part of the illusion, and has a cast of characters as diverse as the aforementioned President Harding, plus Harry Houdini, The Marx Brothers, television inventor Philo Farnsworth (which is good news, everyone!) and BMW founder Max Friz. The project’s very early on in development, with a latest draft of the script reportedly just handed in and no director attached, but sounds like an ideal project for Depp to combine his dramatic talent with natural eccentricities. At the very least, it can surely only be a step up from the unbelievably dreadful latest Pirates outing.
[via LA Times]