Johnny Depp Will Play A Supercomputer In Transcendence
Over the course of his career, Johnny Depp has played a wide variety of characters—a swashbuckling pirate, an undercover teenage narcotics cop, a lonely writer, a Freddy Krueger victim, and a guy with hands shockingly similar to Freddy Krueger, just to name a few. Well, there’s at least one role he hasn’t tackled yet, though that situation will soon be rectified: he will play a supercomputer in the upcoming sci-fi film Transcendence.
The Wrap reports that Depp will play a smarty-pants scientist. Or at least we assume he must be a smarty-pants, because his brain is uploaded into the aforementioned supercomputer, and they don’t just upload any old nobody’s consciousness into one of those things.
The futuristic plot of Transcendence revolves around three scientists who are working on creating “the world’s first fully self-aware computer.” A group of terrorists with a vendetta against technology assassinate one of the scientists, played by Depp, “whose brain gets uploaded into a supercomputer with the aim of creating the world’s first machine that can think for itself.”
Producer Andrew Kosove also noted that the script, which has been kept close to the vest, plays with themes of “singularity, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.”
Beyond Depp, Transcendence has just a little bit of name recognition behind it. Christopher Nolan is executive producing the picture, which will mark the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, Nolan’s long-time, Oscar-winning cinematographer. That combination alone is enough to spark at least a slight interest in many of us. And while a slew of other big-name actors have been linked to the film, none of the other roles have been filled yet. You can bet you’ll recognize most of them when they are.
