‘The master of misfits returns’ … Johnny Depp dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Thursday. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘The master of misfits returns’ … Johnny Depp dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Thursday. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images Johnny Depp Johnny Depp is playing Scrooge? I am not here for his big Hollywood comeback Stuart Heritage ‘It’s good to be back,’ says the actor in a new trailer for the forthcoming Ebenezer. Has everyone forgotten about the ghosts of his past?
I t is fair to say that, professionally speaking, Johnny Depp has had a quiet few years. Since he and Amber Heard sued each other amid a whirlwind of genuinely ugly accusations in 2019, and went to trial in 2022, Depp has struggled to reclaim his position in Hollywood.
His 2020 film Minimata made less than a million dollars at the box office. Jeanne du Barry fared better in 2023, although its Cannes premiere was marked by feminist demonstrations and an open letter signed by 100 members of the French film industry, furious that the festival appeared to be offering alleged abusers institutional protection. Aside from that, he voiced a Puffin called Johnny Puff in a cartoon series called Puffins, and that’s about it.
Rather, it was. Because now Depp is back on top. Yesterday he made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con in San Diego in costume as Ebenezer Scrooge, shuffling and slurring in front of a crowd of delighted onlookers. He shouted insults (“Have you people no jobs?”) and made Trump jokes (threatening to put a tariff on some railings) and interrupted a Directors on Directing panel to wander about and mutter.
The reason for Depp’s appearance is simple. Paramount has made a film about Ebenezer Scrooge, and he is playing the lead. The trailer could not be more clear that this is to be Depp’s big comeback vehicle, either. As Scrooge hobbles about the screen, the trailer’s captions proclaim: “He brought us Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands and the Mad Hatter. This November, the master of misfits returns.” And then Depp, his face as close to the camera as it can possibly be, whispers, “It’s good to be back.”
It is hard to see how the trailer could have made the comeback any more explicit, although some people might take the trailer’s wording with a pinch of salt. It is, after all, a piece of extraordinary public relations to take a man who was found by a UK civil court to have repeatedly punched his wife in her head while screaming “I fucking hate you” and rebrand him as “the master of misfits”. It does seem like booking Bill Cosby for a film and calling him “TV’s Mr Sex”.
Still, the trailer has received almost universal approval from commenters on YouTube, whose feedback ranges from “I think many will go see this film even if it’s not good, just to see Johnny back on the screen” to “Good to see Johnny Depp back!!!”. Which is great and everything, but where were you when Minimata came out, you cowards?
View image in fullscreen Depp in character at Comic-Con. Photograph: Tony Forte/MediaPunch/Shutterstock And in fairness, the film does seem to offer precisely what people expect from a mainstream Johnny Depp performance. His Scrooge is an overblown caricature of a thing, all hunched and cackling, and filled with the sort of overblown reaction shots that have come to be his stock in trade. His eyes bulge. His tongue sticks out…