EXCLUSIVE: A day after 89-year old iconic South Boston mob boss James (Whitey) Bulger was beaten to death — his face reportedly pummeled beyond recognition by prisoners with mob ties and a grudge — in a West Virginia prison, I asked Scott Cooper how he would script Bulger’s headstone. While several major movies and TV…

UPDATED with details of death: James “Whitey” Bulger, the one-time leader of the South Boston mob who became a controversial FBI informant and was played by Johnny Depp in Scott Cooper’s 2015 film Black Mass, was beaten to death this morning by fellow inmates in a high-security West Virginia federal prison. He was…

The June 27th announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regarding new and tweaked rules for the 87th Academy Awards seemed pretty much by-the-numbers at the time, but in the days since has engendered controversy over a new requirement in the Documentary Feature category that now requires even…

Warner Bros. announced today that their untitled Whitey Bulger film starring Johnny Depp, also known as Black Mass, will hit theaters on September 18, 2015. Universal’s Jake Gyllenhaal and Jason Clarke true life disaster pic Everest is the only wide-release competition currently slated for that weekend. Scott Cooper (C…

If all filmmaking is struggle, none struggle harder than the documentary director who: searches for truth and injustice; raises the money to expose it; fights to escape the common result of barely leaving a festival footprint before vanishing; and then starting all over. Joe Berlinger has fared better than most. An…

The latest docu from Oscar-nominated director Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) tracks the trial of notorious criminal James “Whitey” Bulger, using his court proceedings as a platform to examine accusations of corruptions within the American legal system. Berlinger premiered…

Magnolia Pictures acquired U.S. theatrical, VOD and home entertainment rights to Whitey: The United States Of America V. James J Bulger, the Joe Berlinger-directed docu on notorious Irish gangster Whitey Bulger and the massive law enforcement corruption that allowed his reign of terror to proliferate in South Boston…

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh from what should be a star-making turn as Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades Of Grey, Dakota Johnson is in early talks to play the love interest of Johnny Depp’s Whitey Bulger character in the Scott Cooper-directed Black Mass. Bulger has a couple of women in his life, but Johnson will play Lindsey, his…

Before tonight’s Academy Awards, catch up on the top stories you missed this week on Deadline: Oscars Finally Here – Record Voting Turnout According To Academy But What Does It All Mean? By Pete Hammond – The robocalls and emails apparently did the trick as Academy CEO Dawn Hudson reports the 86th Oscar contest is…

UPDATE, 12:04 PM: By Warner Bros jumping aboard the high-profile Johnny Depp-Joel Edgerton pic Black Mass, it means the studio won’t be taking on another Whitey Bulger project in its own backyard: the one that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had been developing for a couple of years as a starring vehicle for Damon via…

EXCLUSIVE: Johnny Depp has made his deal to star in Black Mass, the drama Scott Cooper will direct about the Boston crime kingpin-turned-fugitive Whitey Bulger, for Cross Creek Pictures and Exclusive Media. Now, they are in early  talks with Tom Hardy to play John Connolly, the FBI agent and childhood pal of Bulger…

EXCLUSIVE: Scott Cooper is negotiating to rewrite and direct Black Mass, the drama about the Boston crime kingpin-turned-fugitive Whitey Bulger, for Cross Creek Pictures and Nigel Sinclair and Guy East’s Exclusive Media, with Universal releasing through Cross Creek’s distribution deal with the studio. And guess what…