I watched Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on the weekend it came out, and today I checked how much bank it had made at the box office. I wanted to verify if a quite curious trend was going to repeat itself, and sadly it did.
Dead Men Tell No Tales is a blockbuster summer movie. With a budget of $230 million, this film should have pulled in more than half a billion $ easily over that weekend alone, let alone almost two weeks since it’s release. Instead, the movie is sitting at just over $500 million for domestic and international sales combined. All this leaves me with one question in mind: Where’s Johnny?
Johnny Depp is a powerhouse actor. He’s an A-Lister by all accounts. Which means he has enough clout to get a movie made just by attaching himself to the project. But something weird is happening with him. Since 2012’s Dark Shadows, all the films he’s carried as the lead have underperformed commercially AND critically…Johnny always got one or the other, very frequently both. But for five solid years now, the man can’t catch a break…It’s interesting in a way I will explain in this post, but it also sucks big time.
The Lone Ranger (2013), Transcendence (2014), Mortdecai (2015), Black Mass (2015), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), and now Dead Men Tell No Tales. All these big productions have performed below expectations.
What does this mean for Johnny Depp? For now nothing: he’s getting roles and securing his future projects while still on set for his upcoming ones. The only change I read, and I don’t know if it’s true, is that his quote (salary) had gone down from his usual standard $20 million.
Johnny Depp still has it though. He was fantastic in Dead Men Tell No Tales. I personally prefer the serious Johnny Depp. The Public Enemy (2009) Johnny Depp, the Donnie Brasco (1997) Johnny Depp. Which is why I don’t understand why audiences aren’t responding to him. He’s the symbol of versatility in Hollywood, his projects are all over the spectrum in terms of creativity and challenge.
What I meant earlier, when I said it was interesting to see Johnny go through a career crisis, was that I’m eager to see how he navigates his way through it, or out of it. If he does so successfully, it’ll be the blueprint for all of us wannabe actors. Johnny Depp is in a slump, but I believe he’ll rise out of it. We’re talking about Edward f*****g Scissorhands here.
All the big films he’s done in the last five years (listed above) shouldn’t have bombed at the box office. They were solid projects, and there really is no explanation. Except for Black Mass. The biographical crime drama drew a lot of similarities to the Goodfellas, and that’s not a comparison any movie comes out of looking very good. The Goodfellas is quite simply the greatest crime film ever made.
It’s been suggested that maybe, his serial-collaborating with his muse Tim Burton had peaked, and was crippling his creativity. They haven’t worked together as director and lead since 2012. Johnny Depp has multiplied different directors and projects since. So it’s something else that Depp has to figure out, because I refuse to think that Hollywood is tired of him.
We’re rooting for you Johnny, you can do it. If anyone’s doubting his level of talent, let me leave you with this: When Public Enemy (2009) was getting ready to go into production, Leonardo DiCaprio, the master thespian and king of Hollywood, apparently campaigned for the lead role. However, we all know who got to play John Dillinger…