OPINION – Let’s Be Honest about Johnny Depp
The Depp-Heard trial was grotesque in more ways than one.
Apologies for the long hiatus, dear readers. Things should be getting back to normal now, and what better way to start the new chapter of this newsletter’s life than by commenting on the hot topic of the week?
Having largely ignored the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial for its duration, I did watch the livestream of the verdict being read out. Many people who are more qualified than me to do so have already written about the negatives of the whole event, which turned the fallout of a chaotic divorce into a social media spectacle. What I want to focus on is arguably the best example of PR spin of the entire trial, and the reason I thought Depp was never going to win: the claim that Heard’s statements about him actively damaged his career.
Per the actor and his lawyers, he was doing absolutely fine, professionally speaking, until his ex-wife published an op-ed stating he was a domestic abuser. Except that article went online in December 2018, at which point – shocking though this may sound to Depp’s most ardent defenders – his career was pretty much already, if not completely down the toilet, at least halfway there.
The funny thing is, Depp had already accurately predicted, circa 2004, that at some point in the future he would stop being bankable. That point arrived ten years ago, when Dark Shadows opened in theaters and became the first big studio release starring the actor to lose money at the box office. This was followed by a string of costly flops: The Lone Ranger (2013), Transcendence (2014), Mortdecai (2015), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016). By the time Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Men Tell No Tales opened in May 2017, there were already articles about Depp’s fading popularity, including the possibility of continuing the swashbuckling franchise without him.
In fact, he was faring much better as a supporting actor, appearing in ensemble pieces like Murder on the Orient Express and the Fantastic Beasts films. And even then, when J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. defended the choice to cast him as Gellert Grindelwald, critics did question the logic of staunchly supporting an actor who didn’t really add anything to the franchise, be it commercially or artistically (many agree that his last live-action performance with real effort put into it was Sweeney Todd in 2007).
Of course, it is possible those who were misled into thinking his career was in excellent health pre-2018 either haven’t seen the many stinkers he appeared in or simply cannot fathom that their idol may have fallen out of favor with mainstream audiences. When I pointed out his dwindling box office track record in a Facebook thread, one fan responded by claiming that Sherlock Gnomes (an animated film where Depp voices a garden gnome version of Sherlock Holmes) grossed 450 million dollars. It actually grossed 90 million and failed to recoup its budget.
And even the most damning development in the whole saga – Depp being forced to relinquish the role of Grindelwald – was less the result of her accusations (the studio was perfectly willing to let that slide), and more of his stubborn decision to make a public spectacle out of his attempt at professional rehabilitation. Had he ignored the online controversy and not sued The Sun, he would still be the villain in the third – and presumably final – Fantastic Beasts movie (which would have underperformed regardless of who played Grindelwald).
Throughout the entire ordeal (for both parties, and for the public), he’s largely been his own worst enemy, painting himself as an irreproachably good person who married the wrong person rather than an erratic actor who rarely did himself any favors. Case in point, an infamous interview where he denied spending 30,000 dollars a day on wine, before adding it was much more (this was around the time he sued his business managers for allegedly mishandling his finances, even though all signs suggested he was the one making ill-informed decisions).
As such, while the trial was important in highlighting the shades of gray in a volatile relationship where neither party had any business being involved with the other, the outcome isn’t really a triumph of truth or justice, but a victory of showmanship: a has-been successfully making the case that, contrary to all available evidence, he’s still as relevant now as he was two decades ago.