Poisoned film

London, Jan. 13 (AP): Actor Johnny Depp is to produce a film about Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who was poisoned in London with a rare radioactive isotope as he investigated the assassination of a prominent Moscow journalist, the trade paper Variety reported.

Warner Bros. bought the film rights to a book on Litvinenko for Infinitum Nihil, Johnny Depp’s production company, the paper reported yesterday. Depp will produce the film and could star in it, the report said.

Depp’s representatives were not immediately available for comment.

The film will be based on a book by London-based New York Times journalist Alan Cowell, which is expected to be published next year, the report said.

In the race to make a film on the former Russian spy are Columbia Pictures and director Michael Mann who have paid $1.5 million for the film rights to a book about Litvinenko being co-written by his widow Marina and Alex Goldfarb, a close friend. The book is expected to be published in May.

Litvinenko died in November, several weeks after falling ill with what was later determined to be poisoning by the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210.

Litvinenko was a one-time agent in the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB — an agency that replaced the KGB — who broke with the agency and went to Britain, where he was granted asylum.

Litvinenko said he fell ill after meeting in London with an Italian security expert to discuss possible suspects in the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya a month earlier.

In a death-bed statement, Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin for his poisoning. Russian officials have denied that allegation.