{"id":680720,"date":"2026-11-10T18:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T18:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/680720\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T18:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T18:52:10","slug":"ebenezer-johnny-depps-5-million-salary-and-comeback-plans-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/680720\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebenezer: Johnny Depp’s $5 Million Salary and Comeback Plans Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFour years ago, Johnny Depp<\/a>\u2018s fans and detractors descended on the sleepy town of Fairfax, Virginia, to cheer or jeer the actor in his ugly defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard. Now, when local cinema operator Mark O\u2019Meara probes his patrons about \u201cEbenezer<\/a>,\u201d a new take on \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d featuring Depp as the coldhearted miser Scrooge, he\u2019s met with decidedly less intensity about the embattled star\u2019s first major movie role in nearly eight years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome people can\u2019t wait. They love Johnny Depp. And others are just like, \u2018Meh,\u2019\u201d says O\u2019Meara, who owns Fairfax\u2019s University Mall and Cinema Arts theatres. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a polarizing thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEbenezer\u201d isn\u2019t expected to ignite the box office \u00e0 la \u201cMichael,\u201d a musical biopic about a controversial figure. The Dickens adaptation, which opens on Nov. 13, is tracking a modest debut of about $20 million domestically and another $20 million overseas from 63 markets. But O\u2019Meara doesn\u2019t get the sense the public sees Depp as persona non grata, even though the actor\u2019s career has been derailed by personal drama, including domestic abuse allegations leveled by Heard.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount, meanwhile, is betting that moviegoers have been missing Depp, whose last Hollywood outing was 2018\u2019s \u201cFantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.\u201d (He was forced by Warner Bros. to exit the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d spinoff series in 2020 after losing a libel case against the British tabloid The Sun, which called the actor a \u201cwife beater.\u201d Depp won the subsequent defamation trial in the U.S.) An April 2026 study by the National Research Group suggests his fans never turned on him. Participants ranked Depp among the top 10 actors \u2014 ahead of Tom Hanks and behind Margot Robbie \u2014 who \u201cwould make you most interested in seeing a new movie in a cinema in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAudiences don\u2019t care. He\u2019s still one of the biggest movie stars on the planet,\u201d says Kevin Goetz, founder and CEO of audience research firm Screen Engine\/ASI. \u201cThat, to me, is very telling about how often Hollywood perpetuates its own self-fulfilling prophecies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Hollywood has kept a distance, Depp has remained a popular figure around the world, receiving career achievement and tribute awards from international film festivals and retaining a $20 million brand deal with Dior. Onscreen, he has appeared in underseen indies like the 2020 drama \u201cMinamata\u201d and the 2023 period piece \u201cJeanne du Barry,\u201d and he directed the 2024 biopic \u201cMod\u00ec, Three Days on the Wing of Madness.\u201d And Depp\u2019s fans have been vocal on social media, supporting the actor through his professional struggles and bizarrely rallying in 2021 to nominate \u201cMinamata\u201d for the Oscars first (and only) fan favorite award.<\/p>\n

\n\tLately, the town seems willing to forgive Depp. His next film is Lionsgate\u2019s 2027 action thriller \u201cDay Drinker,\u201d co-starring Pen\u00e9lope Cruz. Meanwhile Disney is looking into \u201cEbenezer\u201d and the potential backlash, before greenlighting another \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d movie, according to sources. Depp has said he\u2019s open to returning to the franchise<\/a>, but he noted \u201cthe only involvement I really want to have, truly, is just to send them off on a better note.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEbenezer\u201d doesn\u2019t need to electrify the masses to justify its price tag. Given the uncertainty, Paramount cautiously spent $38 million to produce the Dickens tale. Depp was paid $5 million, a fraction of what he\u2019s earned on prior studio movies, with the promise of bonuses tied to box office performance. Marketing expenses were around $50 million, including stops at San Diego Comic- Con where the actor made a surprise appearance, dressed in character, and threw handfuls of candy at the foot of attendees. (Paramount declined to comment on budgets.) Directed by Ti West<\/a>, known for the \u201cX\u201d horror trilogy, \u201cEbenezer\u201d spins the oft-told yarn of the curmudgeonly businessman who is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m optimistic for a few reasons,\u201d says Regal\u2019s CEO Eduardo Acuna. \u201cEven though this story predates him, it feels like the character was written for Johnny Depp. And it\u2019s good IP from a very distinctive filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCinema operators like Acuna suggest the box office haul will speak less to Depp\u2019s appeal and more to the movie\u2019s quality. After all, there\u2019s been no shortage of takes on \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d Scrooge has been a staple of holiday moviegoing for decades, with popular versions including the 1951 classic with Alastair Sim and 1988\u2019s \u201cScrooged\u201d with Bill Murray. The most recent entry, Disney\u2019s 2009 \u201cA Christmas Carol,\u201d starring Jim Carrey, brought in $325 million against an overinflated $200 million budget.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a story that\u2019s been told a number of times, so it\u2019ll be more about whether this one is compelling,\u201d says Classic Cinemas CEO Chris Johnson. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve heard anyone saying they won\u2019t see it because of Johnny Depp. The public seems to be pretty forgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Depp, embodying a misanthrope like Scrooge \u2014 in the trailer, he\u2019s seen scaring villagers and being stingy with Christmas bonuses \u2014 jibes with the other offbeat or unlikable characters he\u2019s spun into the stuff of contemporary cinema classics. His real-life rebellious persona has helped sell his most famous roles, from the chaotic Captain Jack Sparrow from \u201cPirates of the Caribbean,\u201d eccentric Willy Wonka from \u201cCharlie and the Chocolate Factory\u201d and the mercurial Mad Hatter in \u201cAlice in Wonderland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJohnny\u2019s image was built on being a bad boy,\u201d Goetz says. \u201cHe ain\u2019t America\u2019s dad. We don\u2019t want him to be that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four years ago, Johnny Depp\u2018s fans and detractors descended on the sleepy town of Fairfax, Virginia, to cheer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,238692,93,61,60,28371,55604,62273],"class_list":["post-680720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-ebenezer","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-johnny-depp","tag-paramount-pictures","tag-ti-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}