Kathryn Bigelow’s follow up to The Hurt Locker, Sleeping Dogs (formerly known as Triple Frontier) is certainly attracting some big name interest, as while nobody has officially signed on yet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, Sean Penn, Will Smith, Javier Bardem, Jeremy Renner and most recently Tom Hanks have all been linked to the project. There aren’t even roles for all of them, but it just shows how much people want to work with Bigelow.
Now a new name has emerged, Johnny Depp, who Deadline says is in talks for the movie, suggesting he’s a lot more than just vaguely interested. Sleeping Dogs hasn’t even gone into production yet, but it’s already raising eyebrows in South America, where many governments would prefer Hollywood ignored the border zone between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, which is a haven for organized crime. The movie itself centres on five people working in the zone.
However, while there are five major roles, two of them are the ostensible leads, and Bigelow apparently wants Hanks and Depp for those parts. Shooting should begin next February, and if the director gets her way, it could be a very interesting cast.
There is one fly in the ointment though. Currently Depp is also supposed to start shooting Dark Shadows for Tim Burton next February, but as he’s keen to do Sleeping Dogs too, he’s currently trying to ensure his schedule allows him to work on both movies.