MICHAEL MANN'S PUBLIC ENEMIES IS TAKING SHAPE

This is all awesome news. Per Variety:

Director Michael Mann has set Marion Cotillard to join Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in "Public Enemies." The Depression-era crime drama gets under way in Chicago on March 10 for Universal Pictures. Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff and Jason Clarke are also joining the cast. The Oscar-nominated "La Vie en rose" star Cotillard will play Billie Frechette, the lover of the country's most notorious gangster, John Dillinger (Depp). Tatum will play outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd, Ribisi will play Alvin Karpis, Dorff is near a deal to play Homer Van Meter, and Clarke will play John "Red" Hamilton. That quartet repped a Dillinger gang that knocked off banks all over the Midwest during the Depression. Bale plays Melvin Purvis, who was tapped by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to lead a manhunt that established the FBI as the country's first federal police force after the G-Men killed Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater in 1934. The shooting script was written by Ronan Bennett, Ann Biderman and Mann. Mann will produce with Kevin Misher. Jane Rosenthal is exec producer. U, Mann and Misher spent several years developing the film, which came together quickly after the postponement of Depp's expected spring slot, the Warner Bros. drama "Shantaram." Cotillard is available because the Weinstein Co. postponed "Nine," the Rob Marshall-directed musical she is still expected to star in with Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Sophia Loren. Moving that project forward was a key reason TWC signed an interim deal with the Writer's Guild of America. Tatum was available after United Artists halted the Oliver Stone-directed "Pinkville." Ribisi has been shooting the James Cameron-directed "Avatar," and Clarke most recently wrapped the Jada Pinkett Smith-directed "The Human Contract" as well as the Paul W.S. Anderson-directed "Death Race."