Fans have seen Johnny Depp in colorful characters based from children's book that have been tweaked a little to satisfy the adult movie goers. Depp is in "Finding Neverland" in 2004, in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in 2005 and in "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010.
This year, Depp is said to be in talks with Fox to star in the live-action screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Fortunately, the Milk," a children's illustrated story book. According to a report from Variety, Edgar Wright will be directing and Bret McKenzie of the Flights of the Conchords team is writing the screenplay. Visual effects will be produced by Australia-based Animal Logic Entertainment which also produced effects for "The Lego Movie."
"Fortunately, the Milk" was published by Harper Collins in September 2014. A review from The Guardian described the book as "funny and inventive." It was written with "high comedy" for dads and older Gaiman fans will find it "very likely to be just their cup of tea," the review said.
The story follows a father who went out one day to buy milk for his children. It took him years before he can come back to them, returning with only a carton of milk. When the kids asked what took him long to come back, the father told them an elaborate story that has spaceship and aliens, ponies, vampires, dinosaurs as galactic police and Professor Steg, the time-travelling stegosaurus.
At this point a good guess would have Depp played the role of the father. The father is characterized as being highly imaginative and creative. The elaborate story he told his kids when he came back was woven according to the toys, books and pictures that he saw around their house. But if production gets really creative with it he could also be Professor Steg. The character of the stegosaurus is funny and weird. He is 150 million years old and calls things the way he wants them to be called, i.e. a hot air balloon as Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier.
According to the book's description from Amazon, "Fortunately, the Milk" is a New York Times bestselling story of time travel and breakfast cereal. The book was narrated by a child. Here's an excerpt from the book:
"I bought the milk," said my father. "I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: thummthumm. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road."
"'Hullo', I said to myself. That's not something you see every day. And then something odd happened."