As much as I would like to see Johnny Depp get away from the quirky characters, this teaming with Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) sound too good to pass up.
Deadline.com reports the duo will begin piecing together an adaptation of the 1972 ABC telepic “The Night Stalker“, which subsequently became a series titled “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” featuring the title star Carl Kolchak, a tabloid reporter who investigates mysterious crimes with supernatural, sci-fi and mythological causes such as zombies, vampires, werewolves and aliens.
The pic is being set up at Walt Disney Pictures with Depp currently attached to star as Kolchak, a role originally occupied by Darren McGavin, whom most may know as The Old Man from A Christmas Story or even as Adam Sandler’s father in Billy Madison. Obviously that’s him pictured in the image above.
Expectation is for the film to be made as a family friendly, PG-13 feature and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s being looked at as a jumping off feature for the studio who also has Wright attached to direct an adaptation of Marvel’s Ant-Man. Perhaps this is a way to brand Wright as a Disney filmmaker with box-office drawing power, which they could then translate to the long-in-the-works superhero adaptation.
As of right now there is no script for The Night Stalker though it is said Wright will shape the story with Depp and his Infinitum Nihil partner Christi Dembrowski.
As it stands, this looks like it will be Wright’s next picture considering he has nothing concrete on his upcoming slate outside of the in-development comedy The World’s End with frequent partners Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. However, The World’s End seems far off as Wright posted this pic of him and Pegg trying to come up with a story for what would be the trio’s third major release together after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Sadly, this means we may not see a new Edgar Wright film for some time outside of his screenwriting credit on The Adventures of Tintin.
For Depp it’s a completely different story. Depp will be seen in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows this year and then he re-teams with his Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski for The Lone Ranger and is expected to be working on a remake of The Thin Man with Rob Marshall and a potential fifth Pirates film.
Quite frankly, out of everything Depp has coming up, The Night Stalker is easily the most intriguing. How say you?
