{"id":827222,"date":"2026-11-07T16:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/827222\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T16:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T16:06:11","slug":"hollywood-banks-on-ebenezer-to-bring-johnny-depp-in-from-the-cold-johnny-depp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/827222\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood banks on Ebenezer to bring Johnny Depp in from the cold | Johnny Depp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s good to be back,\u201d Johnny Depp<\/a> declares in the trailer for Ebenezer, in which he stars as Charles Dickens\u2019s miserly Scrooge \u2013 his first big Hollywood studio production in eight years.<\/p>\n

The message is clear: this is Depp\u2019s comeback, after years in which his career was overshadowed by legal battles with his former wife Amber Heard.<\/p>\n

Paramount has made a point of invoking Depp\u2019s most famous roles \u2013 the trailer opens with references to Captain Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and the Mad Hatter, before announcing: \u201cThe master of misfits returns.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the film opens on 13 November, it will be a test \u2013 not just of whether Depp can still sell cinema tickets, but whether Hollywood can restore him to the ranks of mainstream leading men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Ebenezer will serve as a bellwether for the industry as to Depp\u2019s bankability,\u201d said Robert Mitchell, the director of theatrical insights at Gower Street Analytics.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepp has proven he\u2019s most bankable in the past when aligned to a specific type of film, essentially those with larger-than-life, almost grotesque characters of the type he began playing for Tim Burton in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what the marketing is leaning into with Ebenezer \u2013 Depp in a specific, recognisable mode rather than just Depp the actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Depp as Edward Scissorhands, with Dianne Wiest in Tim Burton\u2019s 1990 film. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd\/Alamy<\/p>\n

In 2020, Depp lost a libel case against the Sun\u2019s publisher, with a judge ruling that the paper\u2019s description of him as a \u201cwife beater\u201d was substantially true.<\/p>\n

Two years later, in a separate US defamation trial, a jury found that Heard had defamed Depp in a Washington Post article and awarded him $10.35m (\u00a37.7m) in damages. It also found that one of Depp\u2019s lawyers had defamed Heard, awarding her $2m. The pair settled their appeals in 2022.<\/p>\n

Depp was asked to step down from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise after losing the UK case, with Mads Mikkelsen replacing him in the third film.<\/p>\n

His subsequent films included Minamata, which made less than $1m at the global box office, and Jeanne du Barry, whose 2023 Cannes premiere was accompanied by protests over the festival\u2019s decision to platform Depp.<\/p>\n

But now Hollywood appears increasingly willing to work with the actor again. His next film, Day Drinker, is due for release in 2027, while the producer Jerry Bruckheimer has said he is in discussions with Depp about a possible sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man\u2019s Chest. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

In Ebenezer, Depp returns to the eccentric, heavily stylised performances for which he became famous. Its director, Ti West, told Entertainment Weekly that Depp brought a particular musicality to Dickens\u2019s dialogue, adding: \u201cHe\u2019s the movie, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Depp, 63, has also been central to the film\u2019s marketing campaign. He appeared at San Diego Comic-Con in July, dressed as Scrooge. This week, he appeared in character at New York\u2019s Bryant Park, where he disrupted carol singers and knocked over a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

\u201cHollywood stars are worth every penny they\u2019re paid when they\u2019re cast in the right role, and they\u2019re worth very little in the wrong role,\u201d said David A Gross, who writes the FranchiseRe newsletter. \u201cWe just saw Tom Cruise crash in Digger. It\u2019s a good example \u2013 there\u2019s no bigger star than him.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he added that Scrooge was a promising fit for Depp: an eccentric, funny and familiar character that played to his strengths.<\/p>\n

An August report by the website Puck<\/a>, based on a test screening in New Jersey, offered an encouraging early indication for Paramount.<\/p>\n

The film scored 80 out of 100, compared with a reported historical average of 72, while Depp received a score of 86. Women aged over 35 were particularly positive. However, test-screening figures are no guarantee of box office success.<\/p>\n

Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at Rentrak, said enough time had passed since the trial for it not to be uppermost in audiences\u2019 minds. \u201cThe reviews and the marketing will matter more than how people feel about Johnny Depp personally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While some viewers might avoid the film because of their feelings about Depp, Dergarabedian added, it was difficult to establish a direct link between controversy about a star and a film\u2019s box office performance.<\/p>\n

Depp waves as he leaves the high court in London in 2020 at the end of his libel case against the Sun newspaper. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Tanya Horeck, a professor of film and feminist media studies at Anglia Ruskin University, emphasised that Depp had never disappeared from public view, remaining the face of Dior\u2019s Sauvage fragrance while his supporters continued to defend him online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that this is Depp\u2019s big \u2018comeback\u2019 suggests that he went away somehow,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, the defamation trial largely elevated his star persona as some kind of misunderstood renegade figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Hollywood\u2019s willingness to cast him again, Horeck said: \u201cThe heralding of Depp\u2019s \u2018return\u2019 is indicative of how male stars accused of misconduct are being rehabilitated for public consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heard, meanwhile, has largely withdrawn from Hollywood. She recently appeared in Silenced, a documentary about the use of defamation law against survivors of gender-based violence, which premiered at the Sundance festival this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s good to be back,\u201d Johnny Depp declares in the trailer for Ebenezer, in which he stars as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-827222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}