Well, it’s been on with Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson at the helm before departing. Then Johnny Depp exited over being asked to halve his $20 million fee. However, organised crime biopic BLACK MASS, which is being joint produced by Cross Creek and Exclusive Media, looks back on with superstar Depp back in the lead of infamous mobster Whitey Bulger and OUT OF THE FURNACE’s Scott Cooper directing. The film will mark the actor’s third major fact-based gangster thriller following Mike Newell’s DONNIE BRASCO and Michael Mann’s PUBLIC ENEMIES.
BLACK MASS charts the rise of Robin Hood-like gangster James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger Jr., a Boston career criminal who landed on the FBI’s most wanted list after disappearing for more than 10 years. He was finally apprehended in 2011 at the age of 81 and is now serving two life sentences for his part in racketeering, money laundering, extortion and the murder of at least 19 people. This despite, at the same time, working as an FBI informant. The figure of Bulger has inspired many mob-like characters in film. Both Jack Nicholson’s role in Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED and Pete Postlewthaite’s Fergie in Ben Affleck’s THE TOWN, to name but two.
Both Depp and Cooper is currently in advanced negotiations with the latter looking for his next project after recently departing Warner Bros. adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘THE STAND. No word if Joel Edgerton is still involved as the FBI handler Bulger secretly spilled to.
Source: Deadline
