Michael Mann and Johnny Depp have agreed to film “Public Enemies”. It’ll be a Chicago-based film about Depression-era gangsters set in 1933 to 1934.Depp will play John Dillinger, according to Variety. The film is slated to start shooting in Chicago on March 10, 2008.

Mann wrote the script based on the book by Bryan Burroughs. Depp recently backed out of Mira Nair’s “Shantaram” due to WGA strike-related script problems.

Since 2006’s “Miami Vice,” Mann has been jumping on and off abandoned projects. “Public Enemies” sounds close in tone and period to an untitled Hollywood noir written by John Logan that stars Leonardo DiCaprio. That project fell through due to a budget climbing in excess of $100 million.

Mann also was attached to “Empire” – a media-mogul drama again written by Logan (which its proposed star, Will Smith, recently compared to “Richard III”) – along with a former Martin Scorsese project entitled “Frankie Machine”. “Frankie Machine” was due to star Robert De Niro and be rewritten by Alex Tse (“Watchmen”).

Mann was possibly to step in and direct “Edwin A. Salt,” which is a CIA thriller to star Tom Cruise.

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