Brett Ratner puts Johnny Depp vehicle, The Libertine, on hold

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

THE LIBERTINE, a movie about French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn starring Johnny Depp, and was once described as WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOL? meets THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, sounds like too tantalizing a project not to be interested in. Well for those of you who are you’ll just have to wait like good boys and girls, because Virginia Woolf isn’t meeting anybody as the project has just officially been put on hold.

Director Brett Ratner spoke with EW at the Sun Valley Film Festival recently and said that given the events surrounding Depp’s personal life he has put the movie on a bit of a hiatus:

“That was a movie I was going to direct next. I put it on hold. Johnny had some issues with his divorce and stuff. So we pushed it off. There’s another movie I’m going to direct. I’m hoping in 2017. I’m very excited about that. I know what it is but don’t want to say what it is yet.

News broke back in May the director and star would team up for the project about the 2011 Strauss-Kahn incident focusing on "a powerful French politician [Kahn] who endures house arrest in a luxury NYC apartment while awaiting trial for sexual assault against a hotel maid." The movie all takes place in one room, and Ratner called it “one of the best scripts” he’s ever read, whatever that means to you.

Frankly the movie does sound like a great vehicle for Depp and Ratner, in that it seems so out of the wheelhouses they’ve been working in recently. Depp really is a tremendous actor so I’d like to see him tackle material where he isn’t under a dump truck of make-up. Sadly we have no idea when we will be getting the film. Oh well, at least we can all watch the other Depp movie called THE LIBERTINE from 2005. Of course, the DVD does come with a complementary bottle of pills.

However, you can catch Johnny Depp in the badass-lookng PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES on May 26.