Lest I remind anyone of the 04 WB DS Pilot that was practically near completion before it was shut down because the suits didn't like the look of it. Has the WB learned their lesson? Let's hope.
Well, television and film are two totally different divisions at WB with totally different people running them (and, of course, the WB network doesn't even exist anymore - and I don't think the people who ran it even work for WB anymore), so what happened with the '04 pilot is probably immaterial so far as the Depp/DS film goes. However, you most certainly make a very good point that just because there's a director, a screenwriter, and a star, that's absolutely no guarantee the film will be made. As I posted earlier in this topic, and you just reiterated, many films die in development hell - even films that are at the exact same point in development that this one is. The film has a long process ahead of it before we can completely breath a sigh of relief that it has been made - and we shouldn't lose sight of that at this early stage. Though at the same time it's still nice to celebrate each hurdle it crosses along the way.
There's a happy medium. We should probably still remain at least a bit cautiously optimistic at this point, but we also don't want to be too pessimistic.