Serbian director Emir Kusturica is in advanced negotiations for Johnny Depp to star as Mexican revolutionary hero Pancho Villa in his upcoming biopic titled Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers, reports Variety.
The script, written with Kusturica’s regular collaborator Gordan Mihic, is complete, but filming is not set to start until 2011, due to Depp’s prior commitments.
Salma Hayek is also in advanced talks to co-star in the film, based on James Carlos Blake’s biographical novel “The Friends of Pancho Villa.”
The Spanish-language biopic is to be shot partly in Mexico, where Villa — an early 20th-century bandit who became a guerilla fighter and a hero to the poor — is an iconic historical figure. Depp will act in Spanish, Kusturica said.
