Johnny Depp In Talks To Play Mexican Bandit & Revolutionary Pancho Villa | Access Hollywood - Celebrity News, Photos & Videos
LOS ANGELES, Calif. --
Johnny Depp is in talks to play one of Mexico’s heroes – Pancho Villa.
The versatile star is said to be in “advanced negotiations” to play the Mexican revolutionary in a film titled “Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers,” according to Variety, which first reported the news.
Additionally, Salma Hayek is also said to be in talks to join the production, which will start filming in 2011, reportedly due to Depp’s other commitments.
According to the paper, the movie will focus on the excesses of the bloodthirsty bandit and revolutionary, based on the novel “The Friends of Pancho Villa,” by James Carlos Blake.
Telly Savalas played Villa in the 1972 film bearing the revolutionary’s name; Yul Brynner also played the man in 1968’s “Villa Rides” and Antonio Banderas played him in 2003’s “And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself.”
Villa was responsible for an attack on the United States in1916 in Columbus, New Mexico, the first on American soil since 1812, after the U.S. chose to support his former ally Venustiano Carranza. U.S. sent troops into Mexico after Villa following the attack, but he was never caught.
Villa, who was born in 1878, was gunned down in July 1923.
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