Mira Nair is set to helm the big budget movie
Shantaram, which could be
Johnny Depp's next starring vehicle after
Sweeney Todd. Depp has for a long time held the rights to the picture, and at one point he was to star with
Peter Weir directing. Plot info from
Coming Soon...
In Shantaram, an Australian heroin addict 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. Nair's films have mostly been set around her native country India, although in 2004 she did direct
Reese Witherspoon in
Vanity Fair. Could this be Oscar terrority for Depp? source -
variety,
coming soon