Johnny Depp to Star and Produce the Rum Diary

Johnny Depp will once again, play a character from a Hunter S. Thompson novel, according to Variety.

Depp is producing Warner Independent's adaptation of The Rum Diary with Graham King, who acquired rights to Thompson's novel for his GK Films shingle and Depp's Infinitum Nihil outfit. Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I) will write and direct the adaptation.

Depp will play Paul Kemp, a freelance journalist writing for a rundown newspaper in 1950s Puerto Rico and surrounded by a bunch of lost souls bent on self-destruction. The journalist was 22 when he wrote the autobiographical novel and had yet to develop his trademark gonzo style. It was written in 1959 but not published until 1998.

Depp previously starred in the big-screen adaptation of Thompson's psychedelic-soaked adventures chronicled in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in 1972.

Depp just finished work on Sweeney Todd and is expected to do The Rum Diary after Shantaram,"Mira Nair's adaptation of the novel about an Australian drug addict who resumes his life of crime after escaping to India.