Johnny Depp Meets Dr. Seuss, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today

Happy Friday! Also in this week-concluding edition of The Broadsheet: More Depp as a screenwriter joins the star's planned Thin Man adaptation... Robert Zemeckis to get ghostly... A Weinsteins lawsuit stays alive... Why do movies suck?... and more

· It's a Johnny Depp kind of day around the film beat, with the actor reportedly attached to a Dr. Seuss biopic in development between Illumination Entertainment and Universal. The project's future depends on a number of factors -- like, say, having a script (In Treatment writer Keith Bunin will do those honors), and the estate signing off on its presentation of the celebrated author's life. Hint: More Finding Neverland, less Ed Wood, and it'll be fine. [THR]

· More Depp! Writer-director Billy Ray will contribute the script to Depp and director Rob Marshall's new adaptation of the classic Dashiell Hammett novel The Thin Man. Ray is the third reported screenwriter attached to the project following Jerry Stahl and David Koepp, the latter of whose "vision didn't line up with Marshall's." Yes! Marshall! That visionary. Anyway, glad this is settled. [THR]

· More Universal! Robert Zemeckis and his Disney-deposed Imagemovers shingle have a new first-look deal with Universal, which has yielded the planned Charles Fort. The project is based on the comic-book series about a turn-of-the-(20th) century paranormal scientist and ghost-hunter; Johnny Depp will no doubt be attached to star in 3... 2... [Heat Vision]

· A nasty $50 million lawsuit claiming that the Weinstein Company sabotaged its animated project Escape From Planet Earth -- and paid $500,000 in hush money to keep its producers from disrupting TWC's Oscar campaign for The King's Speech -- is moving forward in New York. But come on: Why would the Weinsteins deliberately tank this one when they're so good at marketing to kids? [THR Esq.]

· "I'll gladly sponsor a tenth circle of hell for anyone texting during a movie. If you talk through it you deserve your tongue stapled to Eric Pickles. Packs of teenagers are a nightmare. Selfishness abounds. These things are a given." I don't know who Eric Pickles is, but Danny Leigh's point about our love/hate relationships with cinemagoing is stated persuasively, evocatively and eloquently enough. [The Guardian]

· Here you'll find a mainstream film producer explaining why movies today suck. Illuminating stuff! Also: Someone pass me a bottle of pills. [Grantland]