With Depp’s own 21 Jump Street having been remade, Johnny Depp‘s quest to remake television of yesteryear with The Night Stalker now getting a director. Deadline reports that Edgar Wright has been chosen to direct the Depp starring reworking of the TV movies and series The Night Stalker.
Television movies The Night Strangler, Crackle of Death and the short-lived series Kolchak the Night Stalker starred Darren McGavin in the title role. It followed a tabloid reporter whose cases inevitably led him to all things supernatural, including zombies, vampires, werewolves and aliens. All of these things being hot property now, Disney is naturally keen to capitalise on them.
As the source points out, although this will be undoubtedly tailored to Disney’s family friendly fodder franchises, the presence of Wright’s distinctive style will bring a characteristic energy to the film, perhaps reminiscent of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. After all, Disney and Depp have been a winning combination of late.
Depp is also currently working with Tim Burton on a reworking of the 1960s/1970s series Dark Shadows, and is set to mosey out the the Old West in The Lone Ranger with Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski.
