Johnny Depp steps onto the comeback campaign trail

[SAN DIEGO] It’s the biggest Hollywood comeback campaign in memory: Johnny Depp’s attempt to return to movie superstardom.

A decade after allegations of domestic abuse (which he denied) sent Depp’s Hollywood career into a downward spiral – an unravelling that culminated in a lurid 2022 defamation trial – Paramount Pictures is betting that audiences are ready to re-embrace him. The studio is making Depp the face of its Thanksgiving offering, Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol.

“The master of misfits returns,” Paramount proclaims in the film’s teaser trailer, released Thursday (Jul 23). It then cuts to a heavily made-up Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge. All but breaking the fourth wall, Depp rasps: “It’s good to be back.”

It will be Depp’s first Hollywood movie in nearly eight years, ever since Warner Bros forced him out of the Fantastic Beasts franchise and Disney abandoned talks with him for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

At the defamation trial, where Depp accused his former wife, Amber Heard, of damaging his reputation and career by falsely portraying him as an abuser, his manager testified that the star stood to earn about US$22.5 million to reprise his Pirates role as Capt Jack Sparrow. (He won the case.)

Will parents be willing to take their children to see him in a holiday classic – one of the culture’s quintessential stories of moral redemption? Large swathes of Generation Z know Depp as much from the defamation trial, which became a TikTok phenomenon, as from his films. Will they turn out to see him in theatres?

The Ebenezer trailer attracted more than six million views on Paramount’s main YouTube account in its first 18 hours. If Paramount succeeds, will other studios – perhaps even image-conscious Disney – make deals with him again? Depp, whose acting was limited to small foreign films in recent years, already has a second major movie: In March, Lionsgate will release Day Drinker, a supernatural action movie co-starring Penélope Cruz. He received an estimated US$10 million for the role.

“I do see a path for him, particularly because Hollywood needs this comeback,” said Miranda Banks, a professor of film, television and media studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “There’s an incredible lack of compelling A-listers who can open movies on a worldwide basis.”

Paramount declined to comment, as did representatives for Depp.

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The studio started its campaign for Depp in April, when it brought the mustachioed actor onstage at CinemaCon, a convention for theater owners. Depp said deferentially that it had been an “extraordinary privilege” to play Scrooge, a character he had “been obsessed with since I was a little child”. Attendees gave him a standing ovation.

The public phase of the studio’s campaign began on Thursday at Comic-Con International, the annual convention for pop culture enthusiasts in San Diego. Paramount marketers had Depp, dressed in full Scrooge costume, replete with bushy sideburns and prosthetic nose, appear at an elaborate recreation of a 19th-century London “counting house”.

As faux snow drifted down from the building’s roof and carollers in Dickensian garb sang O Christmas Tree, Depp appeared outside and offered a snarly yet playful take on the original Grinch.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” he said to the crowd of roughly 400 people that had gathered on Fifth Street, the convention’s main drag.

“We love you, Johnny!” several people screamed in response. One woman yelled: “Have my baby!”

Depp scowled in disgust. “Humbug,” he shouted, storming back inside. He played this game for about an hour, returning without warning to the street and verbally parrying with Comic-Con attendees. Some had come dressed as Depp characters like Edward Scissorhands, the Mad Hatter and Willy Wonka. (“How do you go wee-wee?” Depp’s Scrooge said to the Scissorhands fellow.)

“Controversies aside, I really like him,” Richard Pole, 37, said of Depp as the marketing stunt began. “I definitely want to check out this movie, which is sort of a surprise because A Christmas Carol on its own is not exciting.”

Pole, a catering chef, said that he was eager to see the collaboration between Depp and the film’s director, Ti West, whose X trilogy horror films are known for their striking visuals.

Mindy Baker, 48, a lobbyist from Chicago, was standing nearby. “This seems like a smart film for Depp to do,” she said. “It’s a beloved story, and I honestly didn’t even recognise him at first in the Scrooge costume.”

Would any lingering ickiness from Depp’s divorce from Heard and the subsequent trial prevent her from buying a ticket? “All of that definitely plays in the back of my brain when I think about him, but I will still go see this movie,” Baker answered.

Polling by the National Research Group, a film industry consultancy, suggests Depp remains a powerful draw. In the firm’s most recent global moviegoer survey, released in April, respondents ranked Depp seventh among stars they said would make them “most interested in seeing a new movie in a cinema in the future”.

Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio occupied the first three spots. Ranking immediately below Depp were Tom Hanks, Keanu Reeves and Scarlett Johansson.

Depp’s Q score, a measurement of a star’s likability, has increased lately. In 2015, before Heard’s accusations, 36 per cent of adults surveyed by the Q Scores Co viewed him positively. That number fell to 24 per cent in 2023. By early this year, it was up to 27 per cent. (The average for a male star in the most recent survey was 18 per cent.)

When Ebenezer arrives on Nov 13, it will be the first adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella for multiplexes since 2009, when Jim Carrey starred as Scrooge in Disney’s A Christmas Carol. That US$200 million motion-capture film received poor reviews and collected only US$325 million worldwide, about half of which Disney had to share with theatres.

Ebenezer, which also stars Rupert Grint, Daisy Ridley and Ian McKellen, will have plenty of competition at the Thanksgiving box office, but it doesn’t need to be a blockbuster to be a financial success. The film only cost an estimated US$38 million to make, after accounting for tax credits from Britain, where it was filmed.

Depp accepted a substantially reduced upfront salary – roughly US$5 million – in exchange for a large share of revenue if the movie succeeds. NYTIMES