The Johnny Depp movie buried by the studio: “He basically said he fucked it”
In the mid-2000s, Johnny Depp was in a strange place in his career. After he broke out with Edward Scissorhands in 1990, Depp forged a path as one of Hollywood’s most idiosyncratic leading men. He made fascinating movies like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Ed Wood. However, none of his films were ever designed to light up the box office, and even when he did have a hit, it was a gangster drama like Donnie Brasco instead of a blockbuster. However, in 2003, he starred in his first bona fide franchise entry, and this turned out to be a double-edged sword. In fact, it may have contributed to a decade-long passion project being buried by a studio.
When Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released, people who had bought stock in Depp as a movie star were finally vindicated. His performance as Captain Jack Sparrow was so downright entertaining and loveable that audiences couldn’t help taking the drunken pirate into their hearts. The film made a staggering $654million worldwide and spawned a series that has banked more than $4.5billion across five entries.
Suddenly, Depp wasn’t just the eccentric, handsome guy who made weird indie movies and graced magazine covers – he was an A-lister capable of shouldering the burden of big-budget blockbusters. By ’06/’07, Depp had cemented his status as the bankable star of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, and two back-to-back Pirates sequels. In the middle ground between the first and second Pirates movies, though, one of Depp’s passion projects was released. To his horror, it came and went almost as soon as it hit cinemas.
The Libertine was a saucy period drama set in 1675 about John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, who led a decadent, debauched life while writing a play for King Charles II, celebrating his time on the throne. Wilmot had a legendary appetite for booze and sex, and the movie took great pleasure in showing Depp drinking, shagging, and carousing his way into an early grave. As the star joked to FilmInk, “I’ve told my kids they’re not going to see it until they’re, like, 30…if then!”
“It wasn’t a good product for them to sell…”
Johnny Depp
Depp had been attached to The Libertine for a decade before it finally came to life, and he was excited for it to finally see the light of day. He was despondent, though, when The Weinstein Company failed to put any kind of push behind the film, which meant it barely made any impression in the US during a depressingly short theatrical engagement in 2005. A saddened Depp admitted, “The process was gruelling and exhausting, as it is for everyone when they do a labour of love. It’s a film I’m proud of because everyone’s work in it is very good. And then, as you say, it came and went so quickly.”
Ultimately, Depp believed the film was cut off at the knees, and this mismanagement meant it had no chance to find the audience it truly deserved. He acknowledged, “It wasn’t a good product for them to sell,” which demonstrated that he knew the effect Pirates had on his perception in that period. In fact, a conspiracy theorist may wonder if Disney was nervous about the star of their major franchise being in another movie that was so explicit and resolutely unsuitable for kids. In this scenario, the House of Mouse simply wanted The Libertine to go away – and something Depp later admitted about Harvey Weinstein may lend credence to this theory.
In 2011, Depp was asked by Vanity Fair if Weinstein ever gave him a reason as to why The Libertine was buried in such a dispiriting manner. The star replied, “Yeah, he basically said he fucked it.” When the interviewer wanted to clarify if that meant Weinstein confessed he’d made a mistake, Depp corrected them with, “No. He made a choice. He made a choice to kill it. Which was understandable. I mean, understandable if you look at it from his kind of point of view.”
Did Disney make it worth Weinstein’s while to shuffle The Libertine off the board in favour of Pirates? Or did the notorious producer simply decide there was no money in the film and, therefore, decided to cut his losses? Only he knows the answer. However, a crestfallen Depp concluded, “Harvey killed a great film.”
