The Master and Margarita
About the Film
Johnny Depp is set to produce — and possibly star in — the first-ever English-language feature adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic satirical novel The Master and Margarita. The project was officially announced in December 2025 at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, where Depp made a surprise appearance to promote it, and is being developed under his production banner IN.2 Film. It’s a fitting literary undertaking for Depp, whose taste has always run to the unconventional, the dark and the fantastical.
The film is produced by IN.2 Film in collaboration with Dali Films (producers Svetlana Dali and Grace Loh, executive producers on Jeanne du Barry), Stephen Deuters and Stephen Malit, together with Tribune Pictures and further executive producers. Johnny Depp produces; no director has yet been attached and no cast has been officially announced, though reports suggest Depp himself could take a key role such as Woland, the Devil.
Filming is expected to begin in late 2026, pending financing, a director and the full cast, which would put a release no earlier than 2027. (Note: the project has been the subject of an ongoing legal/rights dispute as it moves through development.)
Johnny Depp
If Depp does step in front of the camera, reports point to him playing Woland — Bulgakov’s enigmatic, diabolical stranger who arrives in Soviet Moscow — a role tailor-made for his gift for beguiling, otherworldly villains. For now his confirmed involvement is as a producer shepherding the long-awaited English-language adaptation.
More about this film
