Rising with the ‘Dead’
Johnny Depp hopes for fair winds after a recent string of box office squalls. Savvy?
Johnny Depp’s rum-loving Captain Jack Sparrow has faced the most legendary sea foes in 14 years of the Pirates of the Carib
bean franchise, from Blackbeard to Davy Jones, and somehow managed to stagger away victoriously.
But as Sparrow sets sail with the fifth installment in the $3.7 billion worldwide franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men
Tell No Tales, which arrives in theaters Thursday night, it’s Depp facing his own Hollywood survival offscreen that’s providing the main source of drama.
The 53-year-old mega-star is in dire need of a box-office hit, following a string of high-profile flops since his last victory with (wait for it) 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. “It doesn’t get any bigger than this for Johnny Depp. Everyone in Hollywood will be watching to see how Pirates performs this weekend,” says Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “Johnny Depp is Pirates of the Carib
bean. This is a huge test.” The eccentric, eyeliner-wearing Sparrow unveiled in 2003’s Curse of the Black Pearl earned Depp an Oscar nomination, solidified his leading man status and launched a franchise.
“Johnny created this iconic character, the opposite of what every studio executive says you need,” says Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “It’s a character with no arc. He just is what he is.”
Depp’s own story arc has been more pronounced, and distinctly downward, after his portrayal of the Hatter pushed Tim Burton’s
Alice in Wonderland to $1 billion worldwide in 2010 and On
Stranger Tides reached the same mark a year later. The actor’s career has been marked by failures such as Burton’s Dark Shadows and 2013’s implosion The Lone Ranger, featuring Depp as an unrecognizably made-up Tonto When he played a buffoonish art dealer in 2015’s Mortdecai, which tanked with a dismal $7.7 million box office, Depp insisted to USA TODAY that movie business was not his business: “If it’s good and people like it, that’s great. But numbers and stuff ? No.” But the drumbeat grew even louder with Depp’s disappointing return as the Hatter in 2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, which conspicuously opened in second place last Memorial Day weekend. The release came as Depp’s now ex-wife Amber Heard sought a restraining order, alleging that Depp assaulted her. Since the couple’s rancorous divorce was finalized in January, Depp has continued to surface as the subject of the wrong type of press, including his lawsuit against his business managers, who said in their countersuit that Depp spent $30,000 a month on wine. Bruckheimer sees no Pirates fallout from unflattering head- lines (“Zero. The audience sees Johnny as Jack Sparrow and they absolutely love him.”) and blames Depp’s box-office doldrums on the natural cycles of a tough business. “Every actor, producer, director has peaks and valleys, it’s the way it is,” Bruckheimer says.
He points to the adoring fans calling for Depp at packed world premieres this month in Paris and Shanghai as a promising sign, especially after On Stranger Tides brought in 77% of its box office internationally.
Ticket site Fandango reports that Pirates is outpacing Disney’s hit The Jungle Book in advance sales, while Bock predicts a “solid” $80 million to $85 million opening weekend.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore, says all it takes is one hit and Depp will be flying again, having already lined up franchises such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Invisible Man, part of Universal’s new Dark Universe. “This has been a very tough run,” says Dergarabedian. “But Pirates is Johnny Depp’s opportunity to right the ship and get his career back to smooth sailing.”