Johnny Depp is once again starring as a Hunter S. Thompson surrogate in The Rum Diary,
an adaptation of the author's first novel which sees Depp playing Paul
Kemp, a 1950's freelance journalist working for a run-down newspaper in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. A brand new image from The Rum Diary provides another look at the actor in character, along with our first real peek at Amber Heard in the film. Basically, this is very nearly too much beauty for one image.
Depp already played a Thompson doppleganger in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam's batshit-insane 1998 adaptation of Thompson's equally batshit-insane, thinly-fictionalized 1971 investigation into the savage heart of the American dream. Depp has long been an acolyte of Thompson, having a close personal relationship with the inimitable Gonzo journalist, even paying to have the writer's ashes blasted out of a cannon in accordance with his will.
The picture premiered at the official facebook page of GK Films, the production company founded by Graham King.
Obviously, when Johnny Depp is in a movie, his name tends to be most prominently bandied about, but this particular film includes plenty of ringers playing burnouts bend on self-destruction in Puerto Rico. There's Amber Heard, as you no doubt noticed earlier in this post, but there's also Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, and Giovanni Ribisi.
A longtime pet project of Depp's, The Rum Diary marks the first directorial feature from Bruce Robinson since 1992's Jennifer 8. British actor-turned writer-director Robinson is most famous for his semi-autobiographical masterwork Withnail & I. He adapted Thompson's novel into screenplay form, his first time writing a film since In Dreams in 1998.
The Rum Diary is set for October 28th.
