Johnny Depp will balance out his recent makeup- and CGI-heavy performances with some simpler moustache-twirling

By Kevin McFarland | July 11, 2013 | 7:45pm

Aux Features Film

After The Lone Ranger bombed disastrously for Disney, a Western red stain to go along with the sci-fi revenue anvil that was John Carter, Johnny Depp will apparently be trading in the mildly offensive tribal makeup for some non-pirate-related moustache twirling. He’s in line to star in Mortdecai, David Koepp’s adaptation of The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery, a comedic crime novel by the late European writer Kyril Bonfiglioli, finished posthumously by Craig Brown in 1996. Depp previously collaborated with Koepp on the lesser Stephen King adaptation Secret Window, while Koepp's most recent film was last summer's flimsy yet diverting Premium Rush.

In the story, Mortdecai is a wealthy art-dealer who bumbles his way into espionage situations, so it’s sort of a Tourist and Mr. Bean vibe, but with more attention on the moustache, so well within Depp's eccentric wheelhouse. Depp is a little busy right now—he’s got Disney’s Into The Woods adaptation, the fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean film, and Wally Pfister's Transcendence on the docket—but any news of other work can only dull the pain of Lone Ranger, and it's always good when he can squeeze in a film without a ton of CGI, makeup, or Tim Burton around.