Vanity Fair director Mira Nair has been set to direct Johnny Depp in the drama Shantaram based on the Gregory David Roberts novel of the same name.
Adapted by Eric Roth, who also wrote the script for The Good Shepherd, the story is of an Australian heroin addict who escapes from a maximum-security prison and reinvents himself as a doctor treating the destitute in the slums of Bombay. His drive to procure medicine leads him into counterfeiting, gun-running and smuggling.
The film hit a bump in the road back in June of ’06 when Peter Weir left the director’s chair “because his interpretation of it differed greatly than that of the studio and producer,” a Warner Bros. spokesman told Variety.
Producing partner Graham King of Initial Entertainment Group said Nair’s “lush visual style’ lends an “authentic and vital eye” to the story.
The pic is being looked at as Depp’s next once he completes work on Sweeney Todd for Tim Burton with production likely to begin as soon as this fall, with a possible 2008 release.
Emily Watson was a part of the cast, but there is no word on that casting remains true.
