Remember, we've had no actual confirmation that the film will go into production in January - only deadline.com's report and others that have picked up their info directly from it - and we have no idea how reliable deadline.com's report is. There's been no corroborating announcement in the industry trades, or from the producers, or from Depp, or from fandom sources like SG. Plus the script is supposedly still being written, and as I mentioned before, not many actors are willing to sign on to a project without first seeing a script - not even when it's a Burton/Depp project.
It would be great if there really is a planned start date for January. But until there's some reliable source that says as much, it might be wise to take deadline.com's report with a grain of salt...