Paramount Pictures has announced that it is seeking licensing partners for its upcoming animated film, Rango. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and featuring the voice of Johnny Depp, the movie is slated for release in March of 2011. The property is now available for licensing in all categories through Paramount Licensing.

Conceived by Verbinski and written by John Logan (The Aviator), Rango is described as the tale of a household pet who sets out on a journey of self-discovery. The title role will be voiced by Depp, who voiced the male lead in Tim Burton’s Oscar-nominated The Corpse Bride. Verbinski’s Blind Wink Prods. is producing the pic, along with Grahm King and John Carls. Paramount’s Nickelodeon Films is also expected to play a role in bringing the film to the screen.

According to ILM, the film will use keyframe animation based on the studio’s proprietary Imocap system which captures data onset and not performance-driven motion capture. Oscar-winning Pirates of the Caribbean veterans Hal Hickel and John Knoll will be the film’s animation director and vfx supervisor respectively.

[Source]

Yesterday I’ve posted here the picture of Johnny as the Mad Hatter, his new character to “Alice in Wonderland”. The picture came to us thanks to Martina of Johnny-Depp.org.
Unfortunally, as studio request, the picture was took down.

Martina explain this in her site:

The new Photo of Johnny from the Set of Alice (the new Tim Burton, Disney Film) was released to this site through an insider on the set. After the posting took place with that persons permission, a call was made asking us to in good faith pull down the photo. Out of respect for Johnny, Mr. Burton and Disney alike; we have agreed to do this. The image was leaked off the set without permission and we were unaware of this fact. Noone is to blame for the leak, but at JDorg we will respect the wishes of the film company individuals.

We are excited to see more photos from the set released with permission OF COURSE. Thanks for understanding…

RUSSELL Brand is thrashing out a deal to appear in Pirates of The Caribbean 4 — as Captain Jack Sparrow’s brother.

The deal to play Jonathan, younger brother of Johnny Depp’s character, could be worth £5million.
It would catapult Brand, 33, into the Hollywood A-list less than a week after resigning from his Radio 2 show over the Andrew Sachs phone row involving him and Jonathan Ross.

A source said: “There couldn’t be a role more perfectly suited. There’s a lot of Jack Sparrow in his mannerisms and behaviour. Depp’s accent isn’t a million miles away from Russell’s either.

“Russell joining the Sparrows alongside Johnny and Keith Richards as their dad will complete the ultimate on-screen pirate family.”

Brand, based in Los Angeles for the next few months working on new films and a Comedy Central special, has already formed a close relationship with Disney.

In his first US theatre show since the Radio 2 scandal, he took a swipe at Sachs’s granddaughter, burlesque dancer and model Georgina Baillie — who was at the centre of the phone storm.

He told the audience in West Hollywood: “Burlesque and erotica – I’ve been rethinking it of late.”

Source

JOHNNY DEPP is taking his new role as the Mad Hatter literally – he has been caught eating his hat.
The Hollywood star portrays the famous character in director Tim Burton’s new version of Alice in Wonderland, and he has been amusing crewmembers on set with his strange behaviour.
Burton, who was worked with Depp on numerous film projects, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, says the actor is embracing his latest role.
He says, “Nobody plays oddballs better than Johnny and he’s loving playing this one. He actually ate his hat the other day. No word of a lie he just bit into the brim and chewed.”

Source: ContactMusic.

It looks like the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie is now on. Johnny Depp has just agreed to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. According to Variety, Disney has him chained to the Black Pearl for at least one more film.

Still no confirmation on what it’ll be about or even if any of the rest of the cast might return, but I suppose that doesn’t matter. As long as you have Captain Jack Sparrow, you also have a Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

In addition to putting his tricorne hat back on, Depp has also agreed to a slew of other projects for Disney. He’ll also be Tonto in a Lone Ranger movie, and play the Mad Hatter in a Tim Burton take on Alice in Wonderland. Basically, Johnny Depp is on a mission to get his face on every single ride in the Magic Kingdom. All he needs to do now is grab a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and get himself drawn into a cartoon.

No word on release dates for Pirates 4 or Lone Ranger yet, but Alice in Wonderland should show up in 2010.

Fans hoping for a glimpse of one of Hollywood’s most desirable men in Plymouth look like they will be disappointed.

Ever since the announcement some weeks ago that scenes from the new Disney film Alice in Wonderland would be filmed at Antony House near Torpoint, it’s been heavily rumoured that Johnny Depp would star in it – and arrive here for filming.

For the number of security guards at Antony House one could be forgiven for thinking a Hollywood A-lister had come to town… but sadly we’ve got news for you.

A spokeswoman for the production has told The Herald that the heart-throb won’t be filming at Antony, in Plymouth or indeed anywhere in the UK. Read more… »

The cinema industry and the general public do not understand Terry Gilliam. He’s not known also for his luck and the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasssus followed this wave since Heath – the main character – died in half of the movie recordings. This time, however, it seems that Gilliam managed to turn over, putting Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell as substitutes for the actor, since the film is magic.

But Parnassus still doesn’t at least have a distributor and appearing the money is ending, since Gilliam needed to launch a quite different teaser…. In the video, that you check below, the film director recalls their great works and he presents the new film through beautiful conceptual arts, the actors’ images with their models and some preliminary animations in wireframe. It is practically a commercial for somebody to be seen is interested in joining in the production.

To view the movie, click on the image below. You’ll be redirected, and will need Quicktime.

Los Angeles – Johnny Depp will play a villain in the next Batman film.

The actor was linked to the role of The Riddler earlier this year and now one of the superhero franchise’s stars Sir Michael Caine has confirmed both Johnny and Philip Seymour Hoffman will appear.

“I was with a Warner Bros executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said, ‘Yeah’,” said Michael – who played Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

“I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath Ledger as The Joker? And he says, ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath – Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘Shit, they’ve done it again!’ ” he continued.

Johnny recently described the prospect of playing The Riddler as “fun”.

“I heard about that. It seems like it’d be a fun gig for a while, yeah,” he said.

Work is expected to begin on the next movie, starring Christian Bale as Batman, some time next year. – Bang Showbiz.com

Source: News24.com

According to part-time-poet, posted at The Zone:

It’s not a “false report,” because Michael Caine did make the comments, but it’s false in the sense that it’s something said tongue-in-cheek that is being taken seriously. Michael Caine is joking around with the reporter, but he has a very deadpan wit, and–as is often the case with Johnny–something he said as a joke gets picked up and reported seriously in the press. (Think of all the press conferences JD has had with Tim Burton where they joke about what their next movie together will be, and those joke-projects get reported as real possibilities.)

This is not any kind of confirmation of the Riddler casting from Michael Caine; it’s quite the opposite. It’s another indication that the rumor should not be taken seriously, but some people reporting the story missed the point.

Ahhh, if any of you know anything about the films on Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski’s plate you may have assumed that headline to mean Johnny Depp would be re-teaming with his Pirates helmer for Bioshock based on the best-selling Take-Two videogame. Sorry, that’s not it…

Instead Verbinski and Depp will teaming on Paramount’s CG animated effort Rango, which is set for a March 2011 release.

The script was penned by Aviator scripter John Logan. Depp will voice the title character, a household pet that goes on an adventure to discover its true self.

Surprisingly, Variety says Rango will be Paramount’s most ambitious star-driven entry into animation, which makes me wonder where Beowulf fits into the scheme of things.

Like Beowulf, Rango will be a motion-capture film and Verbinski was quoted saying the film will use cutting-edge animation techniques that “will allow us to capture and translate every aspect of Johnny’s performance, using it to drive the computer-generated character in a way that has yet to be seen in an animated feature.”

Depp’s work on the film begins in January.

This was posted in our comments, by Mysi, about a day they met Johnny at St Anne during Public Enemies shooting. I’m posting here because I really wanted to you all read it.

I found out that morning that Johnny was supposed to be in St. Anne, and by 8:45 I was dressed (somewhat… clothes on inside out, but it’s not as if I was going to shag the man) and children loaded in the car. By 10 am, we had already saw him, and the kids were hyped! I sent them to a nearby friends house while I roasted like an idiot in the sun for hours holding our spot. Throughout the day, I spoke with his security people and they were all very nice, and honest about the likelyhood of meeting him at some point. In the evening, when they were done shooting, my son Leviathan asked one of the men, Danny if I remember right, when he was going to meet Willy Wonka. Danny told him that Johnny need to clean up and change. My son got so-ooo excited and started telling all the kids that Johnny is going to go change…… INTO A PIRATE!!!!! I didn’t want a crowd of disappointed youngin’s so I went around trying to explain. My son sat down in front of me pouting, waiting for Johnny to come out. About then, my six year old daughter tells me he doesn’t want to meet all of us “not famous” people, we should just leave. He then made his appearance, seemingly dropped out from the sky somewhere and started shaking hands with all of us. I, sunburnt as all get out (holding back the notion to show Johnny my sunburnt chest that had a big sun design burnt into it because of the silly shirt I had on and exclaiming “I’m burning for you, cry baby”) he shook my hand and I could say absolutely nothing. My daughter said hello, and he continued down the line…. CRAP I forgot Leviathan was sitting down…. I said “Levi, honey, stand up, your gonna miss him” and Johnny heard me, turned around and came back to shake Levi’s hand and thank him for coming. HE MADE OUR SUMMER, we have so much to talk about from that day, and my friends, so much to laugh about looking at my goofy-ass sun burn for three weeks. Thanks for all you do, Johnny… wish I could have a drink with you and B.S. for awhile. You are truely a brilliant, talented, gifted person that has brought much enjoyment to my life. You are appreciated.