News from the formerly Dark Universe tonight, with Variety reporting that Universal has doubled down on its plans to scrub Johnny Depp from its planned Invisible Man movie. As much as the idea of not seeing Depp for an extended period of time might appeal to audiences at this point, the studio is reportedly opting for a much more palatable pop culture figure to take on the film’s lead role: Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss.
For those who’ve somehow allowed themselves to forget: The Invisible Man movie was originally developed as part of Universal’s laughably ill-conceived Dark Universe, which would have brought together Depp, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and more into a sort of League Of Extraordinarily Off-Putting Gentlemen. And while the DU is now as dead as The Mummy’s fortunes at the box office, the idea of making a movie about invisible people apparently lived on in Universal’s heart. More excitingly, the film is currently in the hands of Leigh Whannell, whose 2018 A.I. thriller/super-bloody revenge flick Upgrade was a nasty little treat from the back of filmmaking’s id.
Moss is still just in talks for Whannell’s new film; she’s pretty busy at the moment, appearing in Jordan Peele’s Us, plus a bunch of upcoming film projects, as well as the next season of Handmaid’s. Still, if she even momentarily frees the rest of us from the terror of an invisible Depp lurking out there somewhere, creeping around, doing stuff, she has our eternal and unrelenting thanks.