It is unclear where the movie stands in terms of development. There is no director attached at this stage. The studio has a writers room with elite scribes, overseen by Kurtzman and Morgan, who are tackling reboots of the entire line of Universal’s classic monsters; sources say Ed Solomon, best known for writing Men in Black and Now You See Me, is writing Invisible Man.

The new project is based on the HG Wells novel that was famously adapted into the 1933 black-and-white classic starring Claude Rains. Like most of Universal’s monster movies, the story is tinged with tragedy.

In the original pic, Rains played a chemist who uses a dangerous drug to turn invisible. The transformation leaves him jealous, paranoid and psychotic and leads to a killing spree. The movie spawned several sequels.

In more recent times, Universal tried to get remakes going with David Goyer and Imagine Entertainment.

By nabbing Depp, one of the biggest stars on the planet, and already having Tom Cruise starring in its reboot of The Mummy, Universal is signaling to all it is thinking big and betting big with its monster universe.