Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz are reteaming for Day Drinker, a thriller that Marc Webb will direct for Lionsgate.
The company launches international sales on the title this week at the American Film Market. It marks Depp’s most high-profile attempt to mount a Hollywood comeback following the many controversies that arose from his messy divorce from actress Amber Heard. The actor in recent years starred in the French period drama Jeanne du Barry last year and directed the period indie Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness that just played at the Rome Film Festival, but those were not commercial plays and were made with European backers.
Drinker is squarely in the bankable action genre and has the players to prove it. Producing are Thunder Road’s Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee, who produce the John Wick franchise for Lionsgate. Adam Kolbrenner, whose credits include The Tomorrow War, Free Guy, and Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, is also producing, along with Zach Dean. Dean, who has made a name for himself in the action genre with Tomorrow War, Fast X and Scott Derrickson’s upcoming thriller The Gorge, wrote the original spec screenplay.
In Drinker, a cruise ship bartender meets a mysterious day drinker—only for both of them to find themselves entangled in a criminal underbelly, and connected in unexpected ways.
“Day Drinker combines a highly commercial concept with wildly outrageous twists and turns all set in an incredible world, and there is no better filmmaker than Marc or two more perfectly cast actors than Johnny and Penélope to bring that world to life,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson in a statement
Chelsea Kujawa is overseeing the project for Lionsgate. Dan Freedman negotiated the deals for the studio.
The project is the second recent collaboration between Lionsgate and 30WEST, who also teamed for Power Ballad, a music-themed comedy directed by John Carney which stars Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas. It is currently in post-production. 30WEST will also executive produce Drinker.
Drinker will mark the fourth time that Depp and Cruz have worked together, after Blow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Murder on the Orient Express.
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