Johnny Depp will produce and star in Warner Independent’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical 1959 book The Rum Diaries. Depp will play Paul Kemp, a freelance newspaper journalist in 1950s Puerto Rico who is surrounded by a group of self-destructive lost souls.

Thompson wrote the novel when he was 22, before he developed his trademark ”gonzo” style of writing. Though written in 1959, Rum Diaries was not published until 1998.

Depp previously starred in a movie adaptation of Thompson’s 1972 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The actor just finished shooting Sweeny Todd and is expected to start work on Rum Diaries after he wraps Shantaram, Mira Nair’s adaptation of the novel about an Australian drug addict who returns to a life of crime after escaping to India.

Last week, it was announced that Depp’s production company was working with King’s GK Films on a movie adaptation of the 1960s supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows.

Fear & Loathing is one of the strangest movies I’ve ever seen.  Yikes.

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