Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil acquires the screen rights to Nick Tosches' novel IN THE HAND OF DANTE

Johnny Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil, has acquired the screen rights to Nick Tosches’ 2002 novel In the Hand of Dante, Variety’s Michael Fleming reports: “The novel will be developed as a potential star vehicle for Depp.” JD will produce In the Hand of Dante with Infinitum Nihil president Christi Dembrowski (Johnny’s sister). Although Infinitum Nihil has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. and Graham King’s GK Films, JD’s company used its own funds to option the Tosches novel, a testament to Johnny Depp’s affection for this particular work. In a 2003 interview with Gregory Katz (available in the JDZ Archives), Johnny praised In the Hand of Dante as “unbelievable”–that is, unbelievably good–and added, “I read anything by Nick Tosches.”

When In the Hand of Dante comes to the screen, Johnny Depp will be playing Nick Tosches, who appears as a character in the complex plot. The novel entwines two storylines, one which shows Dante struggling to complete his masterwork, The Divine Comedy, in 14th-century Italy, and one which shows the present-day author Tosches attempting to discover whether a recently-unearthed manuscript is actually Dante’s original. Marc Kloszewski of Library Journal calls Tosches’ novel “brilliant . . . synthesizing history and biography with contemporary murder and mayhem to create an exotic meal of a book, albeit one for strong stomachs. [. . .] As with any Tosches book, a reader’s willingness to embrace the dark side and all that it entails is essential. However, behind the grunge lies a fascinating study of the power of writing and the relative value applied to it. The fact that the cynical Tosches doesn’t provide easy answers only adds more provocation. Highly recommended.”

The Zone thanks savvypiratemonky for breaking the news; you can read the Variety article HERE, and a lively discussion of it on the Zone’s News & Views forum. The Zone congratulates Infinitum Nihil on its acquisition and wishes them luck in translating this challenging text to the screen; no doubt it will be a labor of love. –Part-Time Poet

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