Johnny Depp, Edgar Wright Team for Children’s Book Adaptation ‘Fortunately, the Milk’
Edgar Wright and Johnny Depp (Photo: Jon Furniss/Invision/AP; Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)
Fox is in early talks to pick up Fortunately, the Milk, which will have a script by Bret McKenzie.
By Borys Kit and Rebecca Ford
THR exclusive: Edgar Wright and Johnny Depp are teaming up to adapt Fortunately, the Milk, based on a Neil Gaiman story, in a hot package that is in early negotiations to be acquired by Fox.
Wright would helm the film, which is intended to be a live-action/animation hybrid which will have a script by Bret McKenzie, the writer known as being one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords.
Depp will star in and produce along with animation house Animal Logic Entertainment (The Lego Movie), which acquired the book out of pocket and packaged it. Zareh Nalbandian will produce for Animal Logic.
Gaiman’s children’s book is described as “a story of time travel and breakfast cereal.” It starts out with a father who goes to the store to buy some milk and returns with wild tales of aliens, space-time travel, pirates, and more.
The bestseller originally hit shelves Sept. 30, 2014, via HarperCollins.
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The pitch package hit the town Thursday, generating immediate interest.
For Wright, the sale happens just as the filmmaker, who last directed 2013’s The World’s End, is in pre-production on Baby Driver starring Ansel Elgort, Lily James, and Jon Hamm. He’s repped by CAA, Anonymous Content, Independent Talent Group in the UK, and Nelson Davis.
Depp stars as infamous gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass, now in theaters. He’s got Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales both in post. He’s repped by UTA.
Along with starring and writing for Flight of the Conchords, McKenzie wrote the music for The Muppets and its sequel Muppets Most Wanted. He’s repped by UTA and Morris Yorn.
Gaiman is repped by CAA and Ziffren Brittenham.
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