Johnny Depp Forms Production Partnership With Andrea Iervolino, First Pic Will Be Waiting For The Barbarians
Johnny Depp and producer Andrea Iervolino (To The Bone) have formed a partnership to develop and produce film and digital content together. Depp will develop and produce through his Infinitum Nihil production banner and Iervolino will produce through his new blockchain platform TaTaTu.
Their first joint project is the feature film adaptation of J.M. Coetzees acclaimed novel Waiting For The Barbarians, starring Depp, Mark Rylance and Robert Pattinson. Production begins later this month in Morocco and will be directed by in-demand Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra (Embrace Of The Serpent). Alongside TaTaTu, the movie is being produced by Iervolino and Monika Bacardis AMBI Media Group, as well as Michael Fitzgerald (Three Burials) and Olga Segura (Veronica).
The feature follows a British magistrate (Rylance) working in a small colonial town who begins to question his loyalty to the Empire. AMBI is handling sales and the project is not due to be one of the projects launching on the TaTaTu service.
Launched six months ago, TaTaTu has a slate of project including the Lamborghini biopic starring Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin; a documentary on Jeremy Renner; and the drama The Sound Of Freedom set to star Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino. On the acquisitions front, the platform recently acquired documentary Friedkin Uncut.
The AVOD platform, currently in beta stage, is due to incentivize subscribers by giving them digital tokens in exchange for watching content. The TTU Tokens, which trade on cryptocurrency exchange Liquid, will also be used to compensate content creators and pay for advertising on the platform.
According to its founders, this summer the platform closed a $575M token pre-sale, from which proceeds are being used to create content, pick up new users, market the platform and develop the software. Among the first supporters of TTU Tokens, are Prince Felix of Luxembourg, cryptocurrency investment firms BlockTower Capital and Lvna Capital, and AMBIs Monika Bacardi.
Said Iervolino, “Johnny has the ability to conceptualize material in a way that few can, and is unburdened of conventional industry formulas that dictate the projects that get made, traditionally. As we make strides to embrace disruptiveness, Johnny will be a key collaborator with us and we are tremendously excited to back his visions and instincts on stories to bring to life.”
Added Depp, “In this era of democratized entertainment, I admire the imaginative ethos of Andrea and look forward to collaborating together in a liberating, progressive manner that will befit the principals of our respective entities.”
The actor will next be seen on the big screen in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which opens next month. He is repped by CAA.
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