Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz will reunite for Day Drinker, a thriller being developed for Lionsgate and directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man). This will be Depp’s first major Hollywood movie since the scandal involving the fallout of his relationship with Amber Heard.
Day Drinker follows a cruise ship bartender who meets a mysterious day drinker, only for both of them to find themselves entangled in a criminal underbelly, and connected in unexpected ways. “Day Drinker combines a highly commercial concept with wildly outrageous twists and turns all set in an incredible world,” said Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, “and there is no better filmmaker than Marc or two more perfectly cast actors than Johnny and Penélope to bring that world to life.“
This will mark Depp and Cruz’s fourth collaboration. They previously appeared together in Blow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Murder on the Orient Express. Zach Dean (The Gorge) wrote the original spec screenplay and will also produce the project alongside Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, and Adam Kolbrenner.
Webb is currently in post-production on Disney’s live-action Snow White movie, which will star Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. The film is slated for a March 21, 2025 release.
Depp’s next project is Modi, Three Days on the Wings of Madness. The actor doesn’t actually appear in the film, but he directed it, his first time behind the camera in over twenty years. The project is a biopic of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani and is based on Dennis McIntyre’s play Modigliani, with a screenplay by Jerzy and Mary Kromolowski. Modi takes place over the course of 72 hours, with the synopsis reading, “On the run from the police, Modi’s desire to end his career and leave the city is dismissed by fellow Bohemians: French artist Maurice Utrillo, the Belarusian-born Chaim Soutine and his English muse and lover, Beatrice Hastings. Modi seeks advice from his Polish art dealer and friend Leopold Zborowski, but the chaos reaches a crescendo when he’s faced with a collector who could change his life.” Al Pacino plays a supporting role in Modi as real-life French art collector Maurice Gangnat. The film will be released in Italy on November 21st.