Johnny Depp To Make Cameo In 21 Jump Street Movie

ComingSoon confirms that the star will have a cameo in Columbia Pictures’ adaptation of 21 Jump Street, the television crime drama that transformed him into an 1980s teen idol and helped to kick-start his career.

Airing on Fox from 1987 to 1991, 21 Jump Street centered on a squad of young-looking undercover police officers who investigated crimes at high schools and colleges. The series featured a cast that included Holly Robinson, Dustin Nguyen, Peter DeLuise and Michael DeLuise, but Depp and Richard Grieco emerged as the breakout stars.

Rewritten by Jonah Hill from a draft by Josh Applebaum and Michael Bacall, the movie is reportedly an action-comedy about two cops (Hill and Channing Tatum) who go undercover as teenage brothers to bust a high school drug ring. The cast also features Ice Cube, Brie Larson, Rob Riggle, DeRay Davis, Dave Franco and Jake Johnson. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) are directing.

21 Jump Street is filming now for March 16, 2012, release.

Rachel Nichols Reveals Small Cast Of Returning G.I. Joe Characters

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra got harsh treatment from some members of the press, but it was really a fun blockbuster movie, one that honored its source in most ways while telling an enjoyable, explosion-filled story. Plus, people actually got killed. For G.I. Joe, that’s real progress.

A sequel is now in development with Justin Bieber: Never Say Never director Jon Chu at the helm. Nothing has been publicly revealed about the story just yet, but Rise of Cobra star Rachel Nichols had a news flash to share with everyone on her Twitter account yesterday.

“GI JOE 2 News Flash: The only characters to return in the JON CHU directed sequel will be SNAKE EYES, STORM SHADOW, and DUKE…,” she wrote. In the first movie, Ray Park played Snake Eyes, Byung-hun Lee was Storm Shadow and Channing Tatum starred as Duke. The fact that Nichols sent the tweet probably also means that Scarlett is back as well.

Which is … strange, to say the least. Where is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Cobra Commander — or hell, just Cobra freaking Commander? Or Destro? Or Zartan??!?! He’s (spoiler alert) replaced the president for crying out loud! And if Nichols’ tweet only referred to the good guys, the Joes — which isn’t the case, since she mentions Storm Shadow — we still have to wonder what happened to Hawk (Dennis Quaid) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans).

Maybe Nichols has incomplete information? I hope so. The first movie had plenty of promise on its own and it nodded pretty strongly toward where a sequel might go. If some of these core characters really are not returning, where else could the movie go? Will we see Serpentor and Cobra-La instead?