Whitey Bulger has been a subject of fascination for decades now; the infamous Boston crime boss was only captured fairly recently after years on the lam and charged with racketeering and murder, and his story loosely inspired the Scorsese film “The Departed”. Now, a new film about his relationship with FBI informant John Connolly starring Johnny Depp is back in the works again after a brief delay.

Depp will play Bulger in “Black Mass”, which is now slated for a fall/2015 release after Warner Bros. agreed to co-finance it. Originally to be directed by Barry Levinson, the film failed to get the financing it needed last year and the deal fell through. However, Scott Cooper is now attached to the project and Depp is back on, as well, with Joel Edgerton tapped to play Connolly.

Connolly was sentenced to 40 years in prison for allegedly tipping Bulger off that he was about to be arrested in the early ’90s and allowing him to run free. He wasn’t seen or heard from until a chance run-in with a neighbor in San Francisco led to a call to the authorities. He was arrested in 2011 and was charged last year with 32 counts of racketeering, murder, and money laundering.

“The guy is a sociopathic killer,” Tom Foley, an organized crime investigator who spent most of his career with the Massachusetts State Police trying to bust Bulger, told CNN. “He loved that type of life. He’s one of the hardest and cruelest individuals that operated in the Boston area. He’s a bad, bad, bad guy.”

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