Johnny Depp will get Hollywood love at Cannes — however it gained’t save his profession
It was a surreal sight on Tuesday: A smiling Johnny Depp strolling the purple carpet of the Cannes Movie Pageant 2023, signing autographs, taking selfies and hugging screaming followers. Identical to previous instances.
His new movie, “Jeanne du Barry” — which stars Depp as King Louis XV — opened the well-known competition.
The likes of Helen Mirren, Uma Thurman, Elle Fanning, John C. Reilly, Brie Larson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas all attended the premiere on the Grand Théâtre Lumière.
On the finish of the movie, Depp acquired a seven-minute-long standing ovation.
The scene was so glitzy and, properly, regular, you virtually consider the man may make a comeback.
Don’t guess on it. A love parade from the French can’t save a down-and-out Hollywood profession, even when Depp’s now not a pariah.
The final time the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star was greeted by throngs of photographers and video cameras was beneath far much less auspicious circumstances within the late spring of 2022 — outdoors a courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, throughout his tawdry defamation trial towards ex-wife Amber Heard.
On June 1, a jury awarded Depp a mixed $15 million in damages after they discovered that Heard had defamed him in a 2018 Washington Submit op-ed alleging spousal abuse.
Even when the jurors determined in Depp’s favor, the testimony was lurid and unflattering and neither notable got here off blemish-free within the media frenzy.
That sleazy spectacle arrived after one other authorized circus in 2020, when the actor misplaced a libel case within the UK towards the Solar newspaper, which in 2018 had known as him a “spouse beater.”
On account of Heard’s allegations, Disney booted Depp in 2018 from future installments of the “Pirates” collection, wherein he performed Captain Jack Sparrow.
In 2020, Warner Bros. pushed him to depart the “Incredible Beasts” collection, a “Harry Potter” spinoff.
Outdoors of a pair small initiatives, his reign in Hollywood regarded lifeless.
Et voilà! Now, he’s again in grand trend on the Cannes purple carpet. Simply don’t anticipate a triumphant return to the home field workplace.
“Jeanne du Barry” is a comparatively petit French flick that’s nowhere close to the dimensions of what Depp was doing as little as six years in the past when he was among the many highest paid film stars.
And with the “Edward Scissorhands” actor turning 60 subsequent month, the times of main horny studio tentpoles are far behind him for causes apart from the information cycle.
Add to that the truth that France and Cannes are usually friendlier to controversial celebs. This can be a competition that has repeatedly featured works by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski lately — even after each administrators had been accused of sexually abusing minors.
“I don’t know concerning the picture of Johnny Depp within the US,” Cannes director Thierry Frémaux mentioned at a press convention Monday. “To let you know the reality, in my life, I solely have one rule, it’s the liberty of pondering, and the liberty of speech and appearing inside a authorized framework.”
No matter Individuals could consider Depp nowadays, he bought one other profession enhance this week.
France’s Dior simply re-signed with him for $20 million, which is reportedly the largest males’s perfume deal ever. He’s the worldwide face of their males’s scent Sauvage.
Nonetheless, Depp’s days as a swashbuckling sensation in household movies and even as a killer barber in “Sweeney Todd” are clearly performed.
In 2020, a studio head told the Hollywood Reporter, “You merely can’t work with him now … He’s radioactive.”
And US critics weren’t as pleasant as les followers on Tuesday.
Critiques for “Jeanne” had been mediocre. IndieWire mentioned “the movie burns scorching and vivid — and rapidly flames out,” whereas the Hollywood Reporter known as it “bland.”
However the French response to Depp may give him one comforting thought: He’ll all the time have Paris.