Johnny Depp

With all the news about the release of Sweeney Todd, I haven’t talked much about Johnny’s other upcoming projects. Shantaram is set to begin filming in January. It will be directed by acclaimed Indian director, Mira Nair, whose recent films include The Namesake and Vanity Fair. The screenplay was written by Eric Roth, whose other screenplay credits include The Good Shepherd, Ali, and Forrest Gump, among many other popular films. The only two cast members confirmed have been Johnny and Indian actor, Amitabh Bachchan. I’ll give you other Shantaram news as it becomes available. In the meantime, here’s a synopsis of the book, as it appears on Amazon:

Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in Shantaram, a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence. He served two years and leaped over the wall. He was imprisoned for a string of armed robberies peformed to support his heroin addiction, which started when his marriage fell apart and he lost custody of his daughter. All of that is enough for several lifetimes, but for Greg Roberts, that’s only the beginning.

He arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor.” With a prison knowledge of first aid and whatever medicines he can cadge from doing trades with the local Mafia, he sets up a practice and is regarded as heaven-sent by these poor people who have nothing but illness, rat bites, dysentery, and anemia. He also meets Karla, an enigmatic Swiss-American woman, with whom he falls in love. Theirs is a complicated relationship, and Karla’s connections are murky from the outset.

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Johnny Depp, Depp, Shantaram, Sweeney Todd, Mira Nair, Forrest Gump, Ali, The Good Shepherd, The Namesake, Vanity Fair, Amitabh Bachchan