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Would it kill Johnny Depp to make a nice, normal, romantic comedy?  Probably.  So instead, Depp continues to find oddball films to counter-balance his blockbuster turns as Captain Jack Sparrow and his obligatory appearances in every Tim Burton movie.

The latest film to find Depp attached to star is In the Hand of Dante, based on the 2002 novel by Nick Tosches.  Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil, acquired the film rights to the time hopping novel that alternates between a 14th century Dante trying to complete his “The Divine Comedy” and Tosches himself in the present day trying to authenticate what could be Dante’s original manuscript.  That brief plot description and even the longer one found on the book’s official site doesn’t sound all that interesting, but Depp knows best.  Right?

Depp has been a busy man in the past few years, and like the Laurel to Guillermo del Toro’s Hardy, he has an extremely busy future ahead of him.  He’s currently playing The Mad Hatter in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, filming Public Enemies for Michael Mann, and he has a fourth Pirates movie, The Lone Ranger, the on again/off again Dark Shadows movie, and the animated Rango with Gore Verbinski all in the pipeline as well.  Depp also has a second turn as dead journalist Hunter S. Thompson coming up in the film adaptation of Thompson’s The Rum Diary.

Does the book sound like a cross between The Davinci Code and boring to you too?  Wouldn’t you like to see Depp star in a straight comedy?