Depp and Jolie in ‘The Tourist’ scheduled for December

The film studio announced yesterday that the international thriller,
The Tourist, co-starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp will be released December 10 in time for the holiday season and allowing it to qualify as a contender for Oscar and Golden Globe award season.

Directed by Oscar-winning Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck ( The Lives of Others), the film focuses on an American tourist visiting Italy to mend a broken heart, when he meets an extraordinary woman, and Interpol agent, who intentionally crosses his path.

With Jolie's performance in Salt and Depp in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, the actors could already be awards candidates.

Producers had considered casting Tom Cruise and then Sam Worthington for the Johnny Depp role. Charlize Theron was also slotted for the female lead. Even the director changed with Lasse Hallström, Bharat Nalluri and Alfonso Cuaron as possibilities.

A remake of the 2005 French film, Anthony Zimmer, the film also features Paul Bettany ( The Young Victoria) and Timothy Dalton ( Toy Story 3).

Also opening that week is the family fantasy The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and David O. Russell's boxing drama, The Fighter, with Mark Wahlberg.

In 2011 Depp will return as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the animated Rango and The Rum Diary adapted from the Hunter S. Thompson novel.

Jolie will be heard in the Kung Fu Panda sequel with Jack Black next year and she is rumored to be the next Cleopatra in a film scheduled for 2012.

RC