Johnny Depp is taking another crack at playing a real life mobster, but this time he won’t be playing an FBI agent who goes too far, instead he’ll portray a Boston gangster who is in bed with the FBI.
Depp, who portrayed real-life FBI agent Joe Pistone in “Donnie Brasco,” has signed on to play the infamous former fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger in an upcoming biopic from “Rain Man” director and “Donnie Brasco” producer Barry Levinson, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The new film, which starts shooting in May and is titled “Black Mass”, will be based off the bestseller “Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob,” by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill.
The book tells the story of how Bulger became one of the most infamous FBI informants in history as he helped the feds take down the Patriarca crime family. In exchange, the FBI looked the other way as Bulger carried out a reign of terror to take control of organized crime in the greater New England area.
Eventually Bulger’s free reign was exposed by Boston journalists and he hit the road in 1994, becoming one of the most wanted men in the United States. The FBI even put a $2 million reward on the mobster’s head.
Bulger lived on the lam for years until a former Miss Iceland spotted the aging mobster in Santa Monica, California in 2011.
“Black Mass” is not the only Bulger film in the works. Matt Damon is reportedly starring in a Ben Affleck-directed biopic of the mobster, although few details have emerged about the “Goodwill Hunting” pair’s film since it was announced in 2011.