The Tourist is once again shuffling its dance card. Originally set with Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day’s Bharat Nalluri to direct and Tom Cruise and Charlize Theron to star, the film then changed to a Sam Worthington and Angelina Jolie vehicle directed by The Lives of Other’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Now, it looks like both the director and Worthington have dropped out due to the ol’ “creative differences” play. Who could possibly fill those not inconsiderable shoes? Well, according to Variety’s BFDealMemo, Johnny Depp is in talks to step in for the departed Avatar star and among the directorS (emphasis on S) that are circling the project is none other than Alfonso Cuaron. As passively interested as I had become about this remake to the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, I’m suddenly extremely intrigued by a possible Cuaron project with Depp and Jolie playing the leads. I mean, c’mon! Who doesn’t want to see two stars of that caliber collide in an action thriller from the guy who gave us Children of fucking Men?

More after the jump.

None of this is a done deal yet, but it’s looking likely enough for the trades to report on it. Regardless of what the French original’s about, BFDealMemo has the logline for the remake as “an American tourist [is] drawn into a web of intrigue and danger by a female Interpol agent (Jolie) as she attempts to locate a criminal who was once her lover.” One reason Depp is interested is because he has previously worked with Graham King, the film’s producer, on the forthcoming The Rum Diaries and Gore Verbinski’s upcoming animated comedy Rango. Tourist is apparently still on track for it’s February 2010 start date (or at least as on-track as you can be with no male lead and no director), but this could really throw a monkey wrench in the gears of Pirates 4, which has locked in a Summer 2011 release date. If this happens at all, the schedule will be looking extremely tight for Mr. Depp.

Anyway, my curiosity is more than a little piqued now, so we’ll keep you posted as this develops. More as learn more.

Tags: Alfonso Cuaron, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, The Tourist