Most of what we know of Wally Pfister's work comes from the films he's made with Christopher Nolan-- as Nolan's go-to cinematographer since Memento, Pfister has given Nolan's films their distinctive, crisp look, and has created some of the most arresting images in studio films of the last 10 years. Now it's Pfister's turn to step behind the camera of his own film, and with the first-time director preparing to start work on Transcendence, he's lining up a heavy duty cast-- with heavy-duty paychecks to go with them-- to make it happen.
Pfister has reportedly been meeting with Noomi Rapace, James McAvoy, Tobey Maguire and Christoph Waltz to take roles in the film, but according to THR, the biggest part will likely go to Johnny Depp, who's currently in negotiations to star. Those negotiations likely involve a lot of lawyers, as Depp is apparently going to get an enormous paycheck for the part-- $20 million or 15% of the grosses, whichever winds up being bigger. It's exceedingly rare these days for a star to get a cut of the grosses-- not profit, just the sheer amount of money the movie makes-- but Depp is probably one of the few stars believed to sell a film on his name alone, so the cut may wind up being worth it.
Apparently taking a page from the Marvel playbook, Pfister is keeping the details of the film under tight wraps, though it's "described as in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey"-- which, based on the way that term gets thrown around, could honestly mean anything. Depp would star as a man who creates a computer that becomes self-aware and evil, and he gets sucked inside the world of the computer; feel free to get all of your Tron jokes out of your system now. I'm interested to see how this many stars would fit into the story, and how Pfister's directorial chops will work out, but I'm betting a lot of Hollywood people with their eyes on the bottom line are now wondering how paying Johnny Depp that much can possibly be worth it.
