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It was a surreal sight on Tuesday: A smiling Johnny Depp strolling the crimson carpet of the Cannes Movie Competition 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 pageant.
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 might make a comeback.
Don’t wager 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 in opposition to 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 Publish 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 in opposition to the Solar newspaper, which in 2018 had referred to as him a “spouse beater.”
On account of Heard’s allegations, Disney booted Depp in 2018 from future installments of the “Pirates” collection, during which he performed Captain Jack Sparrow.
In 2020, Warner Bros. pushed him to depart the “Unbelievable Beasts” collection, a “Harry Potter” spinoff.
Exterior of a pair small initiatives, his reign in Hollywood seemed useless.
Et voilà! Now, he’s again in grand style on the Cannes crimson 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 size 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 attractive studio tentpoles are far behind him for causes aside from the information cycle.
Add to that the truth that France and Cannes are usually friendlier to controversial celebs. It is a pageant that has recurrently featured works by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski in recent times — even after each administrators have been accused of sexually abusing minors.
“I don’t know in regards to the picture of Johnny Depp within the US,” Cannes director Thierry Frémaux mentioned at a press convention Monday. “To inform you 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 People could consider Depp today, he obtained one other profession enhance this week.
France’s Dior simply re-signed with him for $20 million, which is reportedly the most important 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 accomplished.
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.
Evaluations for “Jeanne” have been mediocre. IndieWire mentioned “the movie burns scorching and vibrant — and shortly flames out,” whereas the Hollywood Reporter referred to as it “bland.”
However the French response to Depp may give him one comforting thought: He’ll at all times have Paris.
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