11.20.2007

Johnny Depp flick delayed

Johnny Depp is the latest A-list actor to fall victim to the WGA strike. Depp was scheduled to film Shantaram - an adaptation of Gregory David Roberts's novel - in the winter, but the project has now been postponed. Among the reasons the film has been delayed is that the script was not in the shape the filmmakers wanted and the current strike prohibits any revisions. Budgetary concerns were also a factor. Shantaram's budget was heading north of $75 million, outside the studio's comfort zone for the drama set in India and Afghanistan. The story revolves around an Australian heroin addict convicted of robbery who escapes from a maximum-security prison, flees to India and reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of Bombay. He gets involved in counterfeiting, smuggling and gunrunning, which leads him to Afghanistan, where he and a mob boss battle the Russians. Also on hold for Depp is The Rum Diary, an adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel.

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