Johnny Depp to star in 'Shantaram'

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Johnny Depp will produce and star in a movie adaptation of the novel "Shantaram," Daily Variety said Thursday.

The paper said a group led by Warner Bros. has acquired screen rights to Gregory David Roberts' novel, set in the 1980s, about an Australian heroin addict doing time for robbery, who breaks out of a maximum-security prison, travels to India and reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of Bombay.

Along the way, he gets into counterfeiting, smuggling and gunrunning, and eventually takes on Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The story is said to be based on Roberts' own life.

The book was first published August 2003. It is scheduled to be published in the United States next week.