Johnny Depp Partners With Andrea Iervolino on Drama ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’
By Dave McNary
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Johnny Depp and producer Andrea Iervolino have formed a partnership to develop and produce film and digital content, starting with the movie “Waiting for the Barbarians.”
Depp will develop and produce through his Infinitum Nihil production banner and Iervolino will produce through his recently launched social entertainment platform TaTaTu.
“Waiting for the Barbarians,” an adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s novel of the same name, will star Depp, Mark Rylance and Robert Pattinson. Production begins later this month in Morocco and the film will be directed by Ciro Guerra. Alongside TaTaTu, the movie is being produced by Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s Ambi Media Group, as well as Michael Fitzgerald and Olga Segura.
Variety first reported in May at the Cannes Film Festival that Ambi would fully finance the project. “Waiting for the Barbarians” centers on the crisis of conscience of a magistrate from a small colonial town after he witnesses the cruel treatment of prisoners of war.
Depp will next be seen as Gellert Grindelwald in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” the second installment of the “Fantastic Beasts” series set in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. The Warner Bros. film opens worldwide in mid-November.
“In this era of democratized entertainment, I admire the imaginative ethos of Andrea and look forward to collaborating together in a liberating, progressive manner that will befit the principals of our respective entities,” Depp said.
Iervolino said, “Johnny has the ability to conceptualize material in a way that few can, and is unburdened of conventional industry formulas that dictate the projects that get made, traditionally. As we make strides to embrace disruptiveness, Johnny will be a key collaborator with us and we are tremendously excited to back his visions and instincts on stories to bring to life.”
TaTaTu has also announced that it’s backing a Lamborghini biopic starring Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin; an original documentary on Jeremy Renner; and the drama “The Sound of Freedom,” starring Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino. TaTaTu recently acquired the William Friedkin documentary “Freidkin Uncut,” featuring Matthew McConaughey, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Shannon and Friedkin.
Depp is represented by CAA. TaTaTu is a blockchain based social entertainment platform that rewards users for watching and sharing content. Its central currency is the TTU Token, which trade on cryptocurrency exchange Liquid.
