Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp recently acquired the film rights to three books, including James Meek’s novel The People’s Act of Love (Canongate, 2005), Variety reported last week. Depp also optioned Inamorata (Viking, 2004), Joseph Gangemi's novel about a Harvard grad student who falls in love with a psychic whom he is attempting to discredit as a fraud, and Affected Provincial’s Companion (Bloomsbury USA, 2006), a collection of poetry, essays, and diagrams—a "treatise on the value of being a refined gentleman in today's unrefined world"—by Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy. Meek’s novel is set in Siberia in 1919 and tells the story of an escapee from a Russian prison camp who stumbles upon a Christian sect.
The rights were bought by Graham King’s Initial Entertainment Group for Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil. The projects will be produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. The deals come a year after Warner Bros. optioned the film rights to Nick Hornby's novel A Long Way Down (Viking, 2005) for Depp, King, and David Heyman of Heyday Films to produce.
According to Variety, Depp isn’t scheduled to star in any of the projects. The third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End) is scheduled for release next year.
