Johnny Depp to Star as King Louis XV in Film From French Director Maïwenn
Johnny Depp has found his next project and will star as France’s King Louis XV in the next film from the French director Maïwenn, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.
Depp will begin shooting across France later this summer for around three months, and the film is being produced by Pascal Caucheteux and Gregoire Sorlat’s Paris-based Why Not Productions. Wild Bunch International will handle international sales.
No plot or title for the film were revealed. But King Louis XV was known as Louis the Beloved and had the second longest reign of any French monarch between 1715-1774. Historians have been less kind to the king however, citing corruption and fruitless, expensive wars.
The Louis XV film is Depp’s first project since his failed libel lawsuit against the British tabloid The Sun, in which a judge ruled that The Sun’s claim he was a “wife-beater” was “substantially true.” In the wake of that trial, Depp was asked to resign from the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise of films and has said more recently that Hollywood is now boycotting him.
Maïwenn is an actress and a director known for films “Polisse,” “My King” and most recently “DNA,” in which she also starred.
Depp’s latest film “Minamata” was finally released in America by Ierlovino and Lady Bacardi Entertainment (ILBE) and Samuel Goldwyn Films late last year, with a theatrical rollout throughout 2022. The film, directed by Andrew Levitas, casts Depp as war photographer W. Eugene Smith, who in the 1970s traveled back to Japan in order to document the effect of mercury poisoning on coastal communities in the area.
Variety first reported the news of Depp’s latest project.