Can Johnny really emerge from the Depps?
That’s what everybody was asking this week when it was reported that tarnished actor Johnny Depp is in final negotiations to star in Paramount’s new “Christmas Carol” film as Ebeneezer Scrooge, a bitter old crank.
Well, you’ve gotta admit the casting is bang-on.
The job would mark Depp’s first major studio movie in seven years — an unforgiving eternity in Hollywood.
A significant chunk of teens probably have no idea who this guy is.
Depp’s last big gig was “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” the second chapter of Warner Bros.’ lame “Harry Potter” spin-off series that he was unceremoniously fired from after he lost a 2020 libel case against Britain’s Sun newspaper, which called him a “wife-beater” in a story.
That blow came after ex-wife Amber Heard accused Depp in a Washington Post op-ed of abusing her.
Depp denied it. But the drama wasn’t over yet. Then in 2022, his dirty-laundry-airing US defamation trial against Heard began. And it was oh so loudly heard ‘round the world.
Remember that train wreck? What a spectacle it was. The trial included arguments of who was responsible for the alleged feces in the marital bed (Heard or Boo the dog?); Heard’s nickname “The Monster” for her husband’s allegedly violent alter-ego; and the “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!!” string of texts Depp allegedly sent actor Paul Bettany.
And that’s just a small sprinkle of lowlights that unfolded over seven eventful weeks.
Depp ultimately won his case. But nobody came off spotless, and the Court of Public Opinion rages on.
That’s the only thing that matters. Is there, three years later, a significant appetite to see Johnny Depp in movies?
I thought the man would never work again outside of French indie films, his hilariously egotistical Manhattan art show and, perhaps, selling crepes in France.
What was left for him in showbiz but crumbs?
The “Fantastic Beasts” series, which is donezo, replaced him with Mads Mikkelsen.
“F–k you,” he said to a Telegraph reporter this summer when asked about it.
Depp is too damaged now even for Keith Richards-inspired Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. He’s finished at Disney no matter what. The doors of the Magic Kingdom have been slammed shut.
Scandalous headlines aside, his type has also totally changed.
Once a Hollywood bad boy, now he’s a bad AARP member. His sex appeal has vanished, which is not true of his fellow sixty-somethings Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. And the youthful angst that made him famous has turned acrid with age. He’s quite frankly off-putting.
And then this Dickensian detour so intriguingly arrived.
There is an important factor working in the actor’s favor here. The new movie called “Ebeneezer: A Christmas Carol” is not going to be a nice, family-friendly, yuletide version of the Victorian Era classic. It will be something of a horror film — “a ghost story,” according to Deadline — from “X” series director Ti West.
As we’ve seen the last couple years with “Longlegs” ($128 million), “Sinners” ($367 million), “Weapons” ($267 million) and “The Conjuring: The Last Rites” ($485 million), horror still packs ‘em in, regardless of what star’s name is slapped on the poster.
It’s a much safer bet than coming back in a prestige picture for serious adults.
And the genre is comfy territory for Depp. He got his start in one, “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and has been at home with the macabre ever since: “Sleepy Hollow,” “Sweeney Todd” and “The Corpse Bride,” just to name a few.
So, assuming the contracts get signed, he’ll be playing a rude, “Bah humbug!”-spewing, spiteful geezer in a fright-tinged picture.
Sounds about right.
We’ll see how it shakes out next November during peak movie-going season.
Will the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come show Depp the gravestone of a once thriving film career?
Or will the now reignited star holler, “God bless us, every one!”?
