Johnny Depp playing Scrooge? I’m not here to come back to Hollywood Johnny Depp

MeIt is worth saying that, technically, Johnny Depp has only a few years. Since he is Amber Heard Sued against each other in the midst of the worst crimes in 2019, and was put on trial in 2022, Depp struggled to regain his role in Hollywood.

His 2020 movie Minutes made less than a million dollars at the box office. Jeanne du Barry did well in 2023, though his Cannes debut it was marked by feminist protests and an open letter signed by 100 members of the French film industry, angry that the festival seemed to give protection to the organizations they say are harassing. After all, he voiced a Puffin called Johnny Puff in a cartoon called Puffins, and that’s about it.

In fact, it was. Because now Depp is back on top. Yesterday he made a surprise to Comic-Con in San Diego dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge, shaking and trembling before a cheering crowd. He shouted insults (“Do you people have no job?”) and made Trump a joke (threatened to put a tariff on other railways) and disturbed the Directors on the Directing team to wander and murmur.

The reason for Depp’s appearance is simple. Paramount has made a movie about Ebenezer Scrooge, and he’s playing the lead. The trailer doesn’t make it clear that this will be Depp’s big comeback vehicle, either. As Scrooge stares at the screen, the trailer’s caption reads: “They brought us Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and the Mad Hatter. Then Depp, his face as close to the camera as possible, whispers, “It’s good to be back.”

It’s hard to see how the trailer would make a meaningful comeback, though some people might take the trailer’s words with a grain of salt. It is, after all, a piece of a wonderful human relationship to take the person who was found by a UK court repeatedly hitting his wife on the head while screaming “I hate you” and calling her “the master of mistakes”. It looks like booking Bill Cosby in a movie and calling him “TV’s Mr Sex”.

However, the trailer has received almost universal approval from YouTube commenters, whose responses range from “I think many will go see the film even if it’s not good, just to see Johnny appear again” to “Good to see. Johnny Depp back!!!”. It’s fine and everything, but minimata come out, where were you, they are afraid of you?

And in all fairness, the film seems to deliver exactly what people have come to expect from Johnny Depp’s iconic performance. His Scrooge is a charm of substance, wet with quivering, and full of the over-the-top shots that have become his trademark. His eyes are bulging. His tongue is sticking out. He folds his mouth upside down like Silvio from The Sopranos. It’s like watching Jack Sparrow years later on a pie, or Willy Wonka being dragged face down from a riverbank by a lawn.

Also, Ebenezer is directed by Ti West, a man who knows his way around a horror movie better than almost anyone. He made it MaXXXineThe Pearl is the Devil’s House, and there are elements of Ebenezer’s trailer that suggest something much darker than his trailer home might suggest.

It would be a good thing, because as things stand, it would take all kinds of sports to match a man who likes to take a double in a cart with a man who, let’s not forget, was accused of hitting his wife’s head on the countertop and writing messages about his sexuality on the walls of his blood. Maybe a horror movie would be the best way to help him get back to more things. If nothing else, it would fit people’s perception of him.

As returns go, it’s hard to argue with the boldness here. The real test will come in November, when audiences will either flock to Ebenzer or stay away from the bands. However, it can be much worse. At least Depp isn’t selling cheap rings online like Kevin Spacey on.