Johnny Depp is crazy busy, now has Kolchak The Night Stalker, Paul Revere and Dante on his plate

July 11th 2011, 10:15pm

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Was that story about Johnny Depp coming back for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 5 a bit premature? Or is he just ensuring he’ll be occupied for the next decade?

Either way, the actor and his production company Infinitum Nihil are busy collecting potential projects that include a movie about Paul Revere’s famous Midnight Ride, and an adaptation of the 70s TV show “Kolchak, The Night Stalker.”

Depp is currently bringing his fondness for supernatural kitsch to the screen in a feature based on the vampire soap DARK SHADOWS, but he also has a soft spot for Carl Kolchak, a tenacious and cantankerous reporter who always ended up finding some spook, urban legend or other set of bizarre circumstances. KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER had a single 1974-75 season after successful telefilms “The Night Stalker” and “The Night Strangler”, and was the primary influence of “The X-Files”.

Additionally, Depp is working on a story about historical figure Paul Revere. According to Deadline, the story “will focus on the Boston silversmith and that 24-hour period in which he made the risky ‘midnight ride’ from Charlestown to Lexington, becoming a seminal figure in the American Revolutionary War.”

Both projects are set up at Disney as possible starring vehicles for Depp.

Meanwhile, The Playlist says that director Julian Schnabel (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, MIRAL) is working on an adaptation of the Nick Tosches book “In the Hand of Dante” with Depp. Schnabel tells them: “It belongs to Johnny, but I’m not going to make it for a couple of years. We’re gonna work on writing it, developing it.”

Amazon tells me that “The book alternates between two different worlds: 14th-century Italy, where Dante Alighieri searches for the perfect inspiration to complete his masterwork, and 21st-century New York, where murderous thugs seek to profit from the recently unearthed manuscript, thought to be lost to the ages. Enter Tosches, a student of Dante’s work and a go-between for the mob; his quest to authenticate the book takes a turn that his conspirators can’t predict, and he has plans of his own for the tome.”