Mark Rylance has been a resident of Anglophenia for a while now, starring in the historically-based miniseries Wolf Hall and movie Bridge of Spies, both premiering in 2015. Now he's teaming up with Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson for the forthcoming drama Waiting for the Barbarians, according to ComingSoon.net. 

The movie is based on author J.M. Coetzee’s 1980 novel, with the story revolving around a Magistrate of an unnamed frontier settlement. Rylance is set to take on the role of the colony's leader, who is about to step down from his role. He's ready to ease into retirement, but that is upended when a colonel (Depp) from the neighboring empire arrives.

Depp's character, Colonel Joll, is sent to the settlement to see what "the barbarians" are up to. At first glance, it seems the Magistrate and his community are deemed the enemy, but the term refers to an indigenous group of people further out. When the Magistrate realizes members of the native population are being tortured for information, he works to protect them from the military moving in.

In the just released trailer we see that the Magistrate begins to question his loyalty to the empire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wgfLz-N1XE

Pattinson appears in the above trailer as a British soldier, Officer Mandel, who is an aid to the Colonel.

Coetzee, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, wrote the script for the movie, with Ciro Guerra (Birds of Passage) directing.

Waiting for the Barbarians has a new release date, premiering online and VOD on August 7.

Is this going on your watch list?