Johnny Depp and Chris Nolan team for Transcendence

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Well this seemed inevitable. Hollywood genre movie king Johnny Depp will be teaming up with Christopher Nolan to bring us TRANSCENDENCE. The science fiction film will reunite many of the talents behind INCEPTION, including cinematographer Wally Pfister, who will direct, and Nolan, who will be executive producing.

Based on a story by Jack Palgen, TRANSCENDENCE will have Depp playing a scientist whose brain gets uploaded into a supercomputer with the aim of creating the world’s first machine that can think for itself. Producer Andrew Kosove confirmed the news and revealed the the film’s themes will focus on singularity, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.

The film sports three leading roles, so expect more casting news to be streaming in shortly. Ewan McGregor and Tom Hardy have reportedly passed on roles and rumors of Noomi Rapace and Kate Winslet vying for a part have also been dismissed. You can check out a lengthy, spoilerish and mostly outdated synopsis of the film below to get an idea of what TRANSCENDENCE will entail.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

In it, three scientists — Max and the husband and wife team, Will and Evelyn — have been developing a programming code for the world’s first fully self-aware computer… [When] a group of anti-technology terrorists assassinate Will, Evelyn uploads his brain into a prototype supercomputer. Although she at first finds the experiment seems to have gone wrong, before too long Evelyn finds Will responding in computer form. She goes on to connect Will to the Internet so he can help make further scientific breakthroughs. Will asks Evelyn to connect a microphone and a camera up to the computer so he can see and speak to her as well.

Will creates a backup of himself to every computer in the world, and furthers his work through accessing online indexes… When the anti-technology organization finds out, they try to steal the supercomputer and destroy it, but Will no longer needs the computer to survive.