Johnny Depp: The Swashbuckling Star Who Survived Cancel Culture

Johnny Depp once insisted he would never reprise Captain Jack Sparrow—not even for “$300 million and a million alpacas.”

For a long time, the actor appeared determined to leave his most famous role behind, particularly after Disney ended its relationship with him amid allegations made by his former wife, Amber Heard.

Depp was reportedly negotiating another appearance as the eccentric pirate in 2018 when the bitter fallout from his divorce intensified. The dispute later led to two highly publicized court cases, while Disney moved quickly to distance itself from the star.

According to Depp’s former manager, the abandoned agreement could have earned the actor $22.5 million.

In the years that followed, Depp showed little appetite for returning to Disney—or for taking on another major Hollywood studio production.

“They dropped him without a second thought, even though he believed he was telling the truth,” a friend said three years ago. The source added that Depp no longer wanted to deliver “someone else’s words,” preferring to express himself through music and art rather than return to Hollywood.

Yet eight years after the allegations appeared to derail his career, Depp’s professional fortunes now seem to be shifting dramatically.

The actor is once again being positioned as a leading man in major studio projects—and he may soon return to the red bandana and swagger of Captain Jack Sparrow in a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer has confirmed that discussions are underway. “We’re talking with Johnny, we’re working on a screenplay, and hopefully we can get this done,” he said.

The proposed comeback would reportedly be more limited than Depp’s earlier appearances. The project has not yet received final approval because the script remains under revision, although production could begin in 2027.

Depp is also set to headline Paramount Pictures’ major pre-Christmas release, Ebenezer, a retelling centered on Charles Dickens’ Scrooge. He is expected to begin promotional work soon. In addition, he will lead Lionsgate’s thriller Day Drinker, scheduled for release next March.

The developments suggest that both Depp and the Hollywood establishment have reassessed their positions.

For the studios, the explanation may be straightforward: despite years of controversy, Depp has proved difficult for audiences to disregard.

The two widely followed trials, which examined allegations of domestic abuse involving Heard, exposed deeply troubling material, including violent and offensive text messages Depp sent to actor Paul Bettany. One message included threats to burn and drown Heard, followed by an explicit reference to her corpse. Despite the severity of the evidence discussed in court, public attention has since moved on.

Now 63, Depp is no longer the young star known for his sharply defined features, but he continues to command the kind of attention usually reserved for a pop idol at the height of his fame.

During the summer, he toured with Hollywood Vampires, the band featuring Depp on guitar and Alice Cooper on vocals. In Poland, Germany, Italy and the UK, enthusiastic fans gathered outside venues hoping to see him.

From the stage, Depp often acknowledges that loyalty by placing a hand over his heart—an affectionate gesture that is met with loud cheers from the crowd.

Research proves this: cinema-goers now actively want to see films starring Depp, meaning that the gambles taken by Lionsgate and Paramount look less risky.

Polling by the National Research Group, a film industry consultancy, suggests he remains a powerful draw. In the firm’s most recent global moviegoer survey, released in April, respondents ranked Depp seventh among stars they said would make them ‘most interested in seeing a new movie in a cinema in the future’.

Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio were in the top three spots. Below Depp were Tom Hanks, Keanu Reeves and Scarlett Johansson.

Also, Depp’s ‘Q score’ – a measurement of a star’s likeability – has increased lately.

In 2015, before Heard’s accusations, 36 per cent of adults surveyed by the Q Scores Company viewed him positively. That number fell to 24 per cent in 2023. By early this year, it was back up to 27 per cent.

Test screenings of Ebenezer have also shown strong approval for Depp’s return, with insiders reporting that 80 per cent of the audience rated it ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’.

More importantly the test audience loved him: 86 per cent of the audience gave him the top rating for a lead character, notably higher than the usual score of around 67 per cent. Women aged over 35 rated the film most favourably. That’s striking as it’s the very demographic whom you might expect to recoil from Depp. But they do not.

That view appears confirmed by scenes at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April where his surprise appearance to promote Ebenezer was greeted with giddy delight.

‘We love you Johnny,’ shouted some in the crowd. One woman called out: ‘Have my baby!’

Miranda Banks, a professor of film, television and media studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, commented: ‘I do see a path for him, particularly because Hollywood needs this comeback. There’s an incredible lack of compelling A-listers who can open movies on a worldwide basis.’

His popularity is also proven by his ventures outside of acting.

His Three Hearts rum brand, which he launched this year, is apparently a great success.

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His paintings and drawings – he has an exhibition in London which started this week at the Halcyon Gallery – also sell briskly, at very high prices.

And he remains an ambassador for Dior’s best-selling aftershave, Sauvage. I’m told sales of the fragrance actually soared by 50 per cent over the course of his 2022 trial.

It’s clear, then, why the studios want him back: he is box office.

Heard, though, has never recovered from a trashing of her reputation on the internet (which continues to this day, with endless posts, many by bots, on X).

While the High Court in London dismissed Depp’s claims that he had been libelled by being called a ‘wife beater’ in 2020 and found that he had assaulted Heard and left her in fear of her life, a court in Virginia two years later found largely in Depp’s favour.

She has since, aged 40, retreated from view, and is living in Madrid with three children, born with the help of a surrogate, as a single mum.

One local source says she also maintains a holiday home on the island of Mallorca and is so determined to fly under the radar there that she goes by an assumed name.

Meanwhile, locals where Depp lives in Wadhurst, Sussex, see him only occasionally walking his bullmastiff, Bourbon, across the fields behind his 44-room house. He cuts a distinctive figure to say the least.

He lives in the listed manor house – which he refers to as his ‘castle’ – with a travelling entourage of staff who keep him company.

Socially, he is very quiet and no girlfriend has appeared in tow. He was recently spotted having dinner in the Middle House hotel, in Mayfield, with Sandra Beck, the widow of his close friend, guitarist Jeff Beck (the men were unlikely best friends, and Depp misses him greatly).

He maintains his rather ‘intellectual’ pose. Even now, I hear privately, he regards himself as an artist first, a guitarist second and, in a poor third place, an actor.

Indeed, Depp himself said in Cannes in 2023 – which he attended to promote his role in art house movie Jeanne du Barry – that he wasn’t going to scrabble around for anyone’s approval.

‘It’s almost like I need to comeback and do a tap dance and dance my best for you guys, and hope you approve,’ he said. ‘The notion of that is some kind of bizarre mystery.’

And yet here he is, getting ready to tap dance once more. Why? The answer is simple: the large cheque needed to sustain his lifestyle.

He has no fewer than four homes: the ‘castle’ in England (which is rented), a large home in LA and an estate in France which is essentially a small private village, plus the Caribbean island of Little Hall Pond Cay.

Modelling himself on heroes and friends such as Rolling Stone Keith Richards and the late writer Hunter S Thompson, Depp has long embraced a quixotic lifestyle in which spending money wildly seemed a point of pride. He told a magazine in 2018: ‘It’s insulting to say that I spent $30,000 on wine, because it was far more.’ He also said he spent more than $5 million to get Hunter S Thompson’s ashes shot out of a cannon.

His famously large recompense for the Pirates film, which included a slice of the profits,

is said to have made him around £240 million to date. But as Depp explained when in the High Court in London in 2020, he discovered in 2016 that he had ‘lost’ a fortune of $750 million (around £500million).

During a meeting with his advisers at business management group TMG, he was told that all the money he had made from the Pirates films was gone and that he was ‘$100 million in the hole’ because he had not paid his taxes for 17 years.

‘It was a bad meeting,’ he later said with some understatement.

Joel and Robert Mandel of TMG looked after his business affairs from 1999 to 2016. Depp then sued them, claiming $25million (£20million) for gross misconduct, including $5.6 million (£5 million) in late fees on taxes.

TMG said that he was repeatedly warned about looming financial disaster but just ignored them. They counter sued in 2017, calling him ‘a spoiled brat with no impulse control’ and said he was a compulsive spender.

‘Depp listened to no one… [and] demanded they fund a lifestyle that was extravagant and extreme,’ they said, before adding: ‘When Depp’s spending outpaced his earnings, and he refused to change his lifestyle, he was forced to borrow large sums of money to continue living the lifestyle he chose.’

The lawsuit was settled in mediation.

Depp settled another lawsuit with his personal lawyer Jake Bloom – once a father figure to him – who he claimed had improperly collected more than £23 million from him.

Bloom, who’d made Depp rich thanks to a profits deal he crafted for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, counter-sued.

A judge ruled partially in Depp’s favour, saying an oral agreement that they had about fees should have been put in writing.

Some estimates reckon Depp has spent up to £50 million on lawyers, all in all.

Some cutbacks have taken place: he sold his Kentucky equestrian estate and five penthouse apartments in LA, while his estate in France – where he and then partner Vanessa Paradis raised their children Jack and Lily Rose – comes on and off the market for prices around the £40 million mark but has yet to sell.

One source linked to the Depp camp tells me: ‘He never considers the cost of anything.’ But even so, a big payday which comes with a dose of adulation must be hard to resist.

Depp once told an interviewer: ‘Deep down, I’m like an old watch that refuses to be set to the right time. I like to go at my own pace, and not always in the same direction as everyone else.’

But just for now, it seems that direction aligns with the world of Hollywood which he was once so glad to reject.