Los Angeles: The Year of Living Dangerously filmmaker Peter Weir will direct the movie version of Gregory David Roberts' novel Shantaram that will star movie heartthrob Johnny Depp, the industry press has said.
Depp, 42, signed on last year for the lead role in Warner Bros adventure-packed dramatic tale of an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison and reinvents himself in India as a doctor.
Australian Weir, 61, director of such films as war drama Gallipoli (1981), The Truman Show (1998) and Dead Poets Society (1989), last directed Russell Crowe in 2002's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Roberts' autobiographical novel tells how he set up shop in the slums of Mumbai, gets entangled with organised crime, becomes a forger and gunrunner and winds up fighting with the mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan.
In one of the biggest film rights deals of last year, Warner Bros studios and several partners acquired the rights to the novel for $2 million, and immediately signed Depp to lead the cast.
The 1,000-page book published in 2003 was the first that Roberts has written and is based on his own amazing experiences.
Production on the movie version of Shantaram is due to begin late next year, according to a report in industry staple Daily Variety. The film will be produced by Depp's Infinitum Nihil production company, along with Brad Pitt
through his Plan B company and Initial Entertainment Group's Graham King, Variety said.
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