A brief-but-major piece of news has come in from Deadline, who report that, following some whispers, Johnny Depp is officially on board Wes Anderson‘s next film — which, by the way, we now know as The Grand Budapest Hotel. Scott Rudin is electing to produce alongside the filmmaker, while Indian Paintbrush will make something of a Moonrise Kingdom reunion in the meantime.

Good and exciting as this may be, I’m sorry to say we basically don’t have any other “new” information. It’s probably still an ensemble “Euro* movie” featuring Owen Wilson, and I like to think Anderson has continued to pursue the other desired stars — those being Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, and Angela Lansbury — but, otherwise, we’ve got nothing.

And, yet, with this news, I like to think we also have more than one could have reasonably hoped for. Not that this hasn’t been said about a thousand times over by this point — I’ll just go and say it again, anyway — but, yes, it’s very satisfying to see Depp put himself in another non-Disney, non-franchise hopeful; in Anderson‘s hands, rather, I think he should be able to do some career-best work. Early and not really based in anything substantial, admittedly, but yours truly knows a mixture of this director’s proclivities and this star’s onscreen presence has to bring forth something special.

How do you feel about this pairing? Will Depp fit into Anderson’s world?