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Reactions to rumours this week that Johnny Depp is to return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise can perhaps be summed up in two words: “quelle surprise”. This sudden lapse into French is perhaps apt, for Depp, whose image has taken a battering these past few years that is almost (but not quite) unrivalled within the A-list set, is probably on the run from his last film, the French historical drama Jeanne du Barry, which managed just a 49 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
His performance here as Louis XV was described variously as “listless” and “inert”. But what was perhaps most surprising about the film’s promotional campaign, such as it was, was that its director, the French actor/writer Maïwenn, was not exactly diplomatic when discussing her relationship with the troubled, and now toppled, Hollywood legend.
Though Maïwenn insisted she had no regrets about casting the actor many believed to be “cancelled” after his bitter court case with his former partner Amber Heard – Heard had accused Depp of emotional and physical abuse, accusations that a US jury ruled to be false, but a UK judge at a separate libel trial ruled to be true – she did admit that the crew were “afraid” of him, that he “wouldn’t do what the script demanded”, and that he actively wanted to be treated as an icon “all the time”.
Ouch. Once upon a time, specifically the late 1980s, Depp was the emerging giant of cinema, the new James Dean, Paul Newman reborn. Imagine Ryan Gosling, but with even more chiselled cheekbones. Too beautiful for real life, he made much more sense instead on the silver screen where he proved a wonderfully sensitive actor in films like Cry-Baby and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Director Tim Burton wisely realised that Depp was a kindred spirit, essentially a Roald Dahl character quietly obsessed by the music of The Cure, and began casting him in all his films, most notably Edward Scissorhands, in which the actor – those fearful eyes a window into the most delicate of souls – dazzled.
But fame corrupts, and Depp duly fell victim to it, by now king of his own castle, with no one to answer to. Superstars rarely live normal, equable lives, do they? Though he long resisted the lure of Hollywood blockbusters, always preferring the idiosyncratic and the art house, he nevertheless became a major box office draw in 2004 with Pirates of the Caribbean. His performance as Jack Sparrow saw him channel his inner Keith Richards to winning effect. A sequel followed, then another, then two after that. To date, they have made over $4.5 billion at the box office.
His only discernible way back, then, was to let the work do the talking. But it’s been a long time since he’s managed that, and his recent choices have proved lacklustre: The Professor (2018), Minamata (2020). In the absence of a heavyweight director to reinvigorate him – a Martin Scorsese, say, or a Jane Campion – he arrives on each new set with his own baggage, then wields it accordingly, as Maïwenn can attest.
The first Pirates of the Caribbean was high entertainment, the sequels exponentially less so. Volume 6 can only, at best, tread water, and what’s the point in that? If it sinks, at least it’ll have a lot of water in which to do so.
