The Hollywood Reporter recently conducted a long report and analysis of Johnny Depp, who is mired in scandal, and some of the content is excerpted and compiled as follows.
In 2018, the British newspaper The Sun called Depp a "wife-beater", and Depp sued the newspaper for "defamation". On November 2, a British court found Depp losing the case, and the judge said he believed Depp had repeatedly attacked his ex-wife, Amber Hield, who often had to worry about her life. Depp was subsequently expelled from the cast of Fantastic Beasts 3 by Warner, and he will no longer participate in Jerry Brookheimer's new drama "Harry Houdini" (a famous magic illusionist).
Grindelwald edition of Fantastic Beasts 2
In just 4 years, Depp has gone from a first-line star with a cumulative box office of more than 10 billion US dollars to a falling dog in Hollywood. Since the divorce of Depp and Amber began in 2016, due to the continuous litigation, the situation of his intimate text messages, emails, drugs, violence, etc., has begun to spread in public.
Few stars of Depp's caliber can paste so quickly, and his peak period lasted from 2003's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" to the time of his divorce in 2016, when he made a total of $650 million in 13 years. And in depp's new film "Minamata Disease", which was released on February 21 this year, his film remuneration is only 3 million US dollars, which is not the same as his average salary + dividend of 40 million US dollars per film in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.
Even this $3 million figure, Minamata's investors are reluctantly giving it. Because when Depp was filming "City of Lies" in 2018, some crew members sued Depp, saying that the drunken/drunken Depp beat him twice, so investors cut Depp's salary for "Minamata Disease" from 6 million to 3 million.
City of Lies
In the 132-page verdict in the Depp vs. The Sun, a casual flip through reveals a lot of embarrassing details, including Depp's text message to Amber's former agent, "Hield is humiliating herself worldwide, she deserves it, I need your text message about San Francisco... She sucked [Elon Musk's] bend jj, and he gave her a bunch of bad lawyers..."
"I don't have the slightest compassion, fear, affection, or love in my heart for this gold-worshiping, low-b, slimy, overused fish stall... I'm especially glad she wants to fight a lawsuit, she's going to hit the wall hard! Can't wait to kick this jingye drinker out of my life... I wouldn't touch her with gloves. ”
In a text message to Paul Bettany, Depp wrote, "Let's burn Amber!" Paul jokingly replied, "I thought about it, we shouldn't burn Amber... It's funny to have her with her, she's pretty good-looking, and I'm not sure if she's a witch (referring to the medieval witches who would have been burned). We can take the British approach and drown her. Depp added, "Then drown her and then burn her, and I can burn her burned body after burning it to make sure she's dead." ”
The Rum Diaries
Depp also wanted to interfere in Amber's career, and the two met on the set of "The Rum Diaries" in 2011 and married in 2015. Depp wrote to his sister, "I want to get her out of that Warner movie," and Depp's sister is a producer who has worked with Warner before. In this British trial, Depp admitted that the "Warner movie" refers to "Aquaman" starring Amber.
Depp's fan base is large enough that he may continue to defend his idol, paying less attention to principles and focusing mainly on the character he plays. And Hollywood policymakers may not have forgiven Depp so easily for his drug problems — cocaine, alcohol, alprazolam (anxiolytic drugs), smart drugs, oxycontin, psychedelic mushrooms, ecstasy, ecstasy, and so on.
Witnesses said that during the filming of "Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Dead And Dead" in Australia, Depp would swallow 8 ecstasy pills at a time and launched a terrorist campaign against Amber, and eventually Depp's fingertips were cut off and he had to fly back to Los Angeles for surgery. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 was forced to stop work for 2 weeks and cost Disney $350,000 a day. Depp said he was injured because Amber threw a bottle of wine at him and injured his finger.
Pirates of the Caribbean 5
The worst blow from the Sun case was when the judge said he believed Amber's allegations of abuse, "I also believe Ms. Hilde's allegations that this incident had a negative impact on her career as an actress," and rejected Depp's appeal. But on December 9, Depp filed a further application directly with the Uk Court of Appeal to overturn the outcome of the trial. In the current #MeToo era in Hollywood, Depp has become a nightmare for public relations personnel, and no filmmaker dares to invite him again.
SDCC Comic Con 2018
After Depp and Amber first divorced in 2016, there were still filmmakers willing to work with him - 20th Century Fox of "Murder on the Orient Express" and Warner of the "Fantastic Beasts" series. Warner, in particular, at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con, they put Depp on the stage of the comic show "Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald", and it was not only the fans who attended the event that day, but also Amber, who promoted "Aquaman" in the next hall, who was also confused.
Under Kevin Tsujihara at the time, Warner signed a Fantastic Beasts 3 contract with Depp, which did not include a moral clause. The end result was that after the results of Depp's British lawsuit came out, Warner would need to pay the full salary of $16 million first, even though Depp had just filmed a scene.
In July, Amber was outside the Sun courtroom
Long before the British lawsuit, Disney had already withdrawn. Depp's once biggest supporter, Brookheimer, also insisted that Depp was "caught in the car door" in the face of Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" finger injury incident, hoping to let Depp make a cameo in at least in the next series starring Margot Robbie, starring in the female protagonist, but was rejected by Disney.
According to internal sources, the relationship between Depp and Brookheimer is also becoming increasingly tense, and he was going to star in the "Harry Houdini" American drama produced by Brookheimer, which will be a return to his career since "Alice in Wonderland 2: Adventures in the Mirror", "Transcendental Hacker" and "Lone Ranger" have not been able to make money. However, as soon as the British case came out, he also hung up on the drama.
In the eyes of many people, depp's negative news could have avoided being exposed, but he was constantly fighting lawsuits. Next, Depp will continue to fight with Amber in Virginia, USA, about defamation, which will be another blow to Depp's image, regardless of the outcome, because more details about his private life will be exposed, and there will be an obligation to involve former ambiguous objects/ex-girlfriends, including Angelina Jolie, Kayla Knightley and Marion Cotillard.
Many of Depp's predecessors have already been witnesses in his lawsuit, or are about to become witnesses:
Kayla, Alan Barkin, Julie, Lori Anne Allison, Marlian, Vanessa
The drama will be worse for Depp than the British case, because this time, the burden of proof falls on him, and the trial time is probably early next year. The above-mentioned "City of Lies" lawsuit will also be heard early next year.
"It's hard for me to imagine why anyone would want to do that, especially after 3 weeks of trials, where witnesses called out and evidence was presented, and a British judge finally concluded that Depp had attacked Amber on 12 different occasions," said a former member of Amber's team.
Long before Amber, Depp's lawsuits were commonplace. He once paid his first wife, Lori Anne Allison, a $1.25 million gag fee, because he was said to have left a long message that year, which kept using the word "ni**ar."
Depp and Bruckheimer
Ex-girlfriend Vanessa Paradis and ex-fiancée Winona Reid are both staunch supporters of his British case (Depp and Vanessa have also fought multimillion-dollar settlements); while ex-girlfriend Alan Barkin claims that Depp threw a red wine bottle at her. Depp was also sued by two bodyguards who said they needed to remove drug residue from Depp's face on a public relations occasion, and Depp later reached an out-of-court settlement with them.
Depp spent a lot of money fighting the lawsuit, but he spent more money on work. According to the Hollywood Reporter, during the filming of 2015's Black Mass, Depp hired a personal sound technician to take care of his headphone needs "so he doesn't have to memorize lines."
During the six months of the film's early, mid- and post-production period, Depp needed a 24/7 bodyguard team of himself and his children, 2 personal assistants, and an "exclusive assistant" who earned $200,000 a year, all of whom were in first class, and the cost reached $3 million. During the filming of Minamata Disease, which had a budget of just $13 million, Depp asked himself and his personal sound technicians to fly private jets.
《Minamata Disease》
Executives at the distribution company that introduced Hacksaw Ridge to Germany said, "Similar to Mel Gibson's time, the average audience may not be so interested in the personal affairs of the star, and some people will still think that Depp is still a superstar." His return to independent cinema may be a good thing, and from a creative point of view, there are more things that can be done in the world of independent films than in the world of blockbusters. ”
Depp came from a small film background, and before the Pirates of the Caribbean series, it was Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that kept him on his feet. But now, the salary of a film like "Minamata Disease" may not be enough for depp's 14 houses, and the door of Hollywood blockbusters has been closed to him.
"Depp is a classic case of poor PR," says one crisis PR specialist, "and I use him as a case study to tell my clients what not to do." He's not lifting a stone and dropping it on his own feet, he's hitting his face with a stone."
The Hollywood Reporter concluded by concluding that what really devoured the world's once most gold-sucking star was not his violent behavior, bizarre practices and drugs themselves, but his unquenchable desire for revenge. (Because of revenge, I want to fight a lawsuit, and a lot of things in a dozen lawsuits will be exposed + real hammer).
All of Depp's career grossed more than $10 billion at the box office (*representing north America only).
Cover of this issue of The Hollywood Reporter