Johnny Depp has signed on to play Whitey Bulger in Scott Cooper's Black Mass. Tom Hardy in talks to play FBI Agent John Connolly.
The rats always come back, and the story of Whitey Bulger is just too good not to root out once again. Thus enter Scott Cooper’s Black Mass. The director of Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace is helming the Hollywood version of hallowed Boston crime lore, and Johnny Depp has now signed on to star as the infamous Southie kingpin turned FBI informant, turned FBI fugitive in the film.
As reported in Deadline, the project has been long brewing for Depp, who originally was interested in playing Bulger for Barry Levinson before that movie fell through due to financial issues. Now with Cooper onboard, the wheels are turning in a movie that is set to be produced by Cross Creek Pictures and is to be adapted by screenwriter Mark Mallouk from the 2001 Dick Lehr/Gerald O’Neill bestseller Black Mass: The True Story of An Unholy Alliance Between The FBI and The Irish Mob.
Also, Tom Hardy is in talks to co-star as FBI Agent John Connolly, a childhood pal of Bulger who tipped him off that he was about to be indicted by the feds after Bulger graciously ratted on a rival gang’s activity. This led to Bulger’s infamous decades-long on-the-lam run from the law.
This also likely has put two in the back of the head of Ben Affleck’s planned Whitey Bulger film, which was being written by The Wolf of Wall Street and Boardwalk Empire scribe Terrence Winter with the intention of Matt Damon to star as the infamous gangster. Affleck instead opted to adapt Dennis Lehane’s period gangster drama They Live By Night first and foremost. However, Affleck was able to somewhat adapt Bulger before as a composite character played by Pete Postlethwaite in 2010’s The Town. Still, Bulger was most famously “adapted” in fiction through the maddening visage of Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which featured a more violent conclusion to “Frank Costello’s” relationship with the FBI and other law enforcement.
Black Mass is being produced by Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson of Cross Creek, John Lesher, and his LeGrisbi banner.
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