Johnny Depp eyes playing Dr. Seuss in movie
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER October 11, 2011 2:12PM
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Updated: October 11, 2011 7:27PM
Johnny Depp as Dr. Seuss?
Illumination Entertainment and Infinitum Nihil are developing a live-action movie about the life of classic children’s author and illustrator Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel). Depp will produce the project with the potential to star as Dr. Seuss. Universal Pictures will distribute.
Keith Bunin (“In Treatment”) has been hired to write the screenplay.
The iconic Dr. Seuss seems a great fit for Depp’s chameleon-like personality and his recent desire to make family films. As some of the most popular works of all time, Geisel’s books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide.
Geisel was born in 1904 and spent much of his childhood in Springfield, Mass., before going to college at Dartmouth. Throughout his early years, he drew advertising and comic strips, then political cartoons during World War II. By 1950, Geisel was publishing the books that became worldwide classics. He died of throat cancer in 1991.
Universal and Illumination, which paired on last year’s $543-million grossing “Despicable Me,” are in post-production on an animated adaptation of Seuss’s “The Lorax,” which hits theaters in March.
Depp last starred in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which grossed north of $1 billion. He will next star in “The Rum Diary” and the Martin Scorsese-directed “Hugo,” which opens at Thanksgiving.
