Is your computer protected by McAfee cybersecurity software? Chances are, it is. And it’s easy to picture the guy who started the company, John McAfee (especially with that name), as some quiet, softly spoken, weedy little nerd, plugging away with his coding or whatever and raking in millions. But that’s far from the truth, as Johnny Depp is hoping to expose in his next movie, in which he’s playing McAfee as he really is.
The movie will be called ‘King of the Jungle’
Johnny Depp’s John McAfee movie will bear the title “King of the Jungle,” and that’s no joke.
The story, inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal, epic, psychedelic Vietnam War head-trip “Apocalypse Now,” will follow McAfee (himself not only an icon of the cybersecurity world, but also an accused murderer) as he invites a journalist from Wired magazine to his compound in the wilderness of Belize and gives him a tour.
True to Depp’s style, the McAfee movie will be rife with humour in a very dark tone (which sounds increasingly like his Hunter S. Thompson-inspired acid-fuelled road trip flick “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” directed by Terry Gilliam) as it portrays the guy’s insane lifestyle: murder, depraved sex acts, mind-blowing paranoid conspiracy theories about the NSA and such, the whole shabam.
Director and writing team set
“King of the Jungle” will be directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and while wrangling Depp’s performance as McAfee will be their first time working with him, the directors are no strangers to working with big-name stars: Tina Fey in another comedy based on another controversial and uncomfortable subject of humour, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (which was once titled “The Taliban Shuffle,” to give you an idea of what they’re into); Will Smith and Margot Robbie in con artist drama “Focus” (or whatever the messy piece of cr*p was trying to be); and (brace yourself) Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, and Kevin Bacon in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”
The script will be provided by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the pair of writers behind the highly acclaimed magnet of prestige and awards, “The People vs OJ Simpson,” the first season of Ryan Murphy’s lucrative anthology series “American Crime Story,” which is already in production up to season 4 (meaning these two writers are going to be making a lot of money).
The release date for “King of the Jungle” has yet to be confirmed, as does the casting of the Wired journalist who will be starring alongside Depp’s McAfee.
While he works on his best John McAfee impression, Depp has his return to his most famous role (whether it’s his best is up for debate) as Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” for which he’s being paid a ridiculous amount. The Film will be released on 26 May later this year.
