|
 Actor
JOHNNY DEPP recently turned real-life action hero on the set of his
latest crime drama PUBLIC ENEMIES, after saving a group of extras from
being struck down by an out-of-control car. Depp, 44, was shooting a
scene as bank robber John Dillinger when a stunt driver in a 1933 Ford
car sped onto a patch of ice and skidded towards six extras, who were
standing with their backs turned, oblivious to the danger. But the
Hollywood hunk spotted the potentially fatal incident and leaped into
action. An eyewitness explains, "Johnny slammed into the group with arms
outspread, shoving them all back." Johnny Depp will play the charismatic
bank robber John Dillinger— the original Public Enemy Number 1— in
Michael Mann’s latest film PUBLIC ENEMIES, which began shooting in March
2008 on location in Illinois and Wisconsin. The project came into play
when the Writers Guild of America strike forced a postponement of Mira
Nair’s SHANTARAM, thereby leaving Johnny with some free time in his
schedule. Johnny met with Michael Mann a few hours before the Los
Angeles premiere of SWEENEY TODD in early December, and, according to
Variety, “the director and actor shook hands on a deal that triggers a
March 10 start for PUBLIC ENEMIES in Chicago.” Playing Dillinger’s
girlfriend Billie Frechette will be current Golden Globe winner and
Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard, while Christian Bale will appear as
Dillinger’s nemesis, FBI agent Melvin Purvis. Other cast members include
Channing Tatum as gangster Pretty Boy Floyd, Giovanni Ribisi as Alvin
Karpis, Stephen Dorff and Jason Clarke as Dillinger gang members Homer
Van Meter and John “Red” Hamilton, and John Ortiz as Al Capone’s
associate Frank Nitti.
PUBLIC ENEMIES will be Johnny Depp’s first work for Michael Mann,
who has directed COLLATERAL, ALI, HEAT, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, and
THE INSIDER (for which he received an Oscar nomination); he also
produced and created the long-running television series MIAMI VICE and
directed the recent remake. PUBLIC ENEMIES will be made for Universal,
with Mann and his production company Forward Pass producing along with
Kevin Misher and his Misher Films. Tribeca's Jane Rosenthal will be
executive producer. Dante Spinotti, a frequent Mann collaborator, will
be director of photography; costume design will be by Oscar-winner
Colleen Atwood, whose most recent film was SWEENEY TODD. The shooting
script for PUBLIC ENEMIES was written by Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman,
and revised by Michael Mann.
 It
is based on Bryan Burrough's 2004 book, PUBLIC ENEMIES: AMERICA'S
GREATEST CRIME WAVE AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI, 1933 to 1934, which
focuses on several high profile bank robbers which were all operating in
the Midwest at the same time, including John Dillinger, Baby Face
Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Notes Variety, "In 1933, police
jurisdictions ended at state lines, the FBI was in its infancy, the
highway system was spreading, fast cars and machine guns were easily
available, and a good number of the thirteen million Americans who were
out of work blamed the Great Depression on the banks. In short, it was a
wonderful time to actually be a bank robber. On hand to take full
advantage was a motley assortment of criminal masterminds, sociopaths,
romantics, and cretins, some of whom, with a little help from J. Edgar
Hoover, were to become some of the most famous criminals in American
history." Of these high profile criminals, none captured the public
imagination like John Dillinger.
 Will
Johnny Depp play Barnabas Collins, the angst-ridden vampire of
Collinwood? That’s a strong possibility, now that Johnny Depp’s
Infinitum Nihil and Graham King’s GK Films have signed a deal with
Warner Bros. to develop a feature film based on the groundbreaking late
1960s gothic daytime drama DARK SHADOWS. "Johnny Depp is getting in
touch with his inner vampire," reports Michael Fleming of Variety in a
story dated July 26th, 2007. "A rights deal just closed with the estate
of Dan Curtis, the producer/director/writer who created the soap that
aired weekdays on ABC, from 1966 to 1971. Depp and King will produce the
film with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Productions until Curtis
died last year of a brain tumor. Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski
[IN’s president and Johnny’s sister] served as the point person on the
deal." For those Depp heads who never saw DARK SHADOWS, it was a highly
innovative and popular afternoon serial which ran for 1,225 episodes on
the ABC network from 1966 to 1971. Steeped in suspense, DARK SHADOWS
employed gothic conventions and featured leading characters who were
vampires, werewolves, and witches. So strong was the show's mythology
that it continued to engross fans long after DARK SHADOWS left ABC; it
spawned several films and then TV revivals, as well as annual fan
conventions, appropriately called Dark Shadows Festivals, which began in
1983 and continue to thrive.
The Sci-Fi channel
re-aired the original series in the 1990s and early 2000s, introducing
the inhabitants of Collinsport to a new generation of fans. Johnny Depp
may fulfill a childhood dream with the project as he has repeatedly
called DARK SHADOWS his childhood obsession. Johnny Depp has told many
interviewers of his affection for DARK SHADOWS, especially the character
of the vampire Barnabas Collins, played by Jonathan Frid. Reports
Variety, "Depp has said in interviews that he has always been obsessed
with DARK SHADOWS and has wanted to play Collins, the vampire patriarch
of the series." Coincidentally, series creator Dan Curtis gave his
blessing to Johnny playing his most famous character in an interview
published online on five years ago (September 18th, 2002). Responding to
a suggestion that a DARK SHADOWS film remake would work if Johnny Depp
were cast as Barnabas, Curtis replied: "I agree that Johnny Depp would
be great as a new Barnabas." At this point, no director or writer has
been selected for DARK SHADOWS. UB
|
