(Photo: Splash News Online)

Johnny Depp has purchased the movie rights to the 2002 novel In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches. Depp may star as the 14th Century poet who wrote the classic The Divine Comedy about a trip through hell, purgatory, and heaven. The pic will also tell a parallel story of someone who comes into possession (so to speak) of what may be Dante's original manuscript.

Didn't Depp do that already in Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate?

It may be a while before Depp gets to that project, however. He's currently costarring as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, after which he's slated for another Pirates of the Caribbean film, the title role in The Lone Ranger, and voicing Rango in the CGI film of the same name.

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