Johnny Depp Will Indeed Be Pancho Villa For Emir Kusturica; Film Shoots In 2011

Six weeks ago, we told you that Johnny Depp and his Arizona Dream director Emir Kusturica were negotiating a schedule to have Depp play Pancho Villa in Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers. At the time the project was a hopeful one for the pair, because Depp's schedule is packed enough that there was reason to suspect he wouldn't be able to fit the film in alongside his other projects.

Now we know that the film will happen, albeit under the title Wild Roses, Tender Roses, and that it will go before cameras in February 2011.

Screen Daily reports the new info, saying that the film will shoot in Spain and in Kusturica's Serbian studio. The band in which Kusterica has been playing for several years, the No Smoking Orchestra, will do music for the film as well. As promised when the film was originally announced, it will shoot in Spanish, with Depp performing his dialogue in that language.

In general, I love this, because I love Kusturica and I'm excited to see him work with Depp again. (I revisited Arizona Dream after this was announced, and found that it hadn't lost anything over time.) But I can see the ire directed at the film based on the fact that a non-Mexican actor is being cast as the revolutionary Pancho Villa. I understand the financial decisions behind it, but yeah, from most any angle that sucks. Staying positive, though.

In the meantime, Kusturica has another project on the books, which he'll shoot this summer. Cool Water will shoot in Israel; it's "about a male stripper who returns to his native Middle East for his father's funeral." That one is written by Gabriel Bornstein and may see Depp come on board to produce. I'm just happy for anything that gets more Kusturica out there.