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The long-time A-lister is appearing as Scrooge in new A Christmas Carol adaptation Ebenezer. It's his first studio film since his court battles with ex-wife Amber Heard – and all eyes will be on how it fares at the box office.
Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is the definitive story of redemption and rehabilitation – of a man with a murky reputation surprising the world with his goodness. So what are we to make of the latest big-screen version of the story, Ebenezer, having Johnny Depp in the starring role?
The casting certainly adds a postmodern layer to the film. In November 2020, Depp lost a libel case in England against the UK's Sun newspaper, after it had labelled him a "wife beater" in relation to his actress ex-wife Amber Heard. The judge ruled that the Sun had proved the article's contents to be "substantially true" – and Warner Bros immediately dropped Depp from JK Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise.
Soon, the couple's relationship was the subject of another court battle. In 2022, Depp sued Heard for libel in the US for implying in a Washington Post opinion article that he was a domestic abuser. This time the jury found in his favour and agreed that Heard had defamed him. But the highly publicised six-week trial featured details of their volatile relationship and drug use, including Depp and Heard's former marriage counsellor Dr Laurel Anderson testifying that the couple engaged in "what I saw as mutual abuse". It looked as if Depp's career was, in Dickens's phrase, as dead as a doornail.
"Do I feel boycotted by Hollywood?" he said in 2023. "Well, you'd have to not have a pulse not to feel that way. Of course, when you're asked to resign from a film because of [an allegation] that's just vowels and consonants floating in the air, you do feel a bit boycotted."
Now, three years on, Depp has his name above the title of a family-friendly festive caper released by a major studio, Paramount, and co-starring such luminaries as Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint and Daisy Ridley. Is Depp, like the chastened Scrooge, set to be embraced by the public?
The film's publicists seem to be banking on it: the first trailer, which went online in July, took Depp's return from the wilderness as its main theme. "He brought us Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands, and The Mad Hatter," read the captions. "This Thanksgiving, the master of misfits returns." Depp himself is glimpsed in a series of tantalising snippets, before, 30 seconds into the trailer, he gurns at the camera and purrs, "It's good to be back."
Maureen Ryan, the author of Burn It Down: Power, Complacency and a Call for Change in Hollywood, wasn't filled with Christmas cheer. "I personally think making that comeback concept the centre of a jaunty promotional push is tasteless and off-putting, to say the least," she tells the BBC. Paramount have been approached for comment.
Most of the comments beneath the trailer on YouTube were more enthusiastic: "Great to see him back, I'm absolutely seeing this day one," was a typical response.But an article by Emily Lawford in the New Statesman following its release was headlined: "Johnny Depp has made his comeback, so Me Too is truly dead."
Ryan believes that the matter isn't quite that simple. "Things tend to go in cycles in Hollywood, and that includes the industry's attempts at reform," she says. "Every so often, those with power in the industry will express remorse about its worst excesses, make noises about changing the industry culture, and in some cases, they actually do. But right now, we are perhaps at the peak of the backlash to industry figures facing even moderate consequences for their actions."
On the other hand, supporters of Depp believe he was himself wronged – and that, as the actor put it in a 2025 interview, he was made "a crash test dummy for #MeToo" by Heard's accusations. Besides, on top of winning that trial, it helped Depp that he has long presented himself as a rock'n'roll buccaneer, so the dissolute picture of him that emerged from the court cases wasn't too different from the "very distinct personality and brand" he already had, says Mark Borkowski, a PR expert and the author of The Fame Formula. Anyway, adds Borkowski, legal verdicts don't necessarily make or break a star's status. "It's actually about how audiences feel about you, how you make them feel. It's alchemy, to a certain extent."
Because of this alchemy, Depp wasn't cancelled everywhere. When he made that remark about being "boycotted" in 2023, he was on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, because he was co-starring in French period drama Jeanne du Barry. Also in 2023, he directed a film, Modi, Three Days on the Wings of Madness. And he continued to be the face of Dior's Sauvage cologne.
The story for Heard’s career has been very different. Having posed next to Jason Momoa on the poster for DC's superhero blockbuster Aquaman in 2018, she had a much smaller role in the 2023 sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom – and she hasn't been in a film since.
For Depp, a comeback was never off the table. "Hollywood is redemptive, if they see the money," says Borkowski. "That's the crucial bit about it. It is all about the money." During the trials, he notes, Depp's fan base supported him vociferously online and outside the courtrooms, suggesting that he could still be a box-office draw. The new Ebenezer film, says Borkowski, is "a step forward, that's for sure". And it's one with "a whole strategy around it".
One key factor, says Karen McNally, professor of American Film, Television and Cultural History at London Metropolitan University, is that although the trailer emphasises Depp's return, his prosthetic make-up means that he is essentially "in disguise", and doesn't look anything like the person sketched by court artists at his trials. "There's always that battle when you're watching films starring people you've read terrible things about. Would I like to watch that person any more? Should I watch that person any more? But it's easier to watch when you're visualising a character rather than the person themselves and the baggage they bring with them."
The "disguise" aspect is apparent in the film's publicity, too: there has been a notable lack of interviews with Depp and the director, Ti West, but the actor popped up in full Scrooge garb at San Diego Comic-Con in July and at a promotional event in Bryant Park in New York last week.
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Beyond that, Ebenezer has all the right components for a comeback vehicle, says McNally. "It's a classic story, it's a nice, cosy Christmas film, and ultimately you come out of the cinema thinking about the end of the movie, so if it's a feelgood movie in which he gets his redemption, you come out feeling nice and fluffy about Johnny Depp. I think it's going to serve him well, and do what he wants it to do for him."
Most of the signs are pointing that way. In August, Matthew Belloni in Puck News reported on a Paramount test screening of Ebenezer. "Depp scored an 86 [out of 100]," he said, "very high for any actor – the general norm for a lead character is a 67 – let alone a guy who just a few years ago was considered banished and unemployable." And industry analysis and forecasting site Box Office Theory is predicting that Ebenezer will make $22m (£16.4m) on its opening weekend and more than $100m (£74.8m) in total at the US box office – a respectable sum for a film with a reported budget of $38m (£28.4m).
"The facts do speak for themselves," a representative of Depp tells the BBC. "Audiences and the industry are incredibly excited for this moment." And if Ebenezer is a hit, a bigger and more lucrative Hollywood project could be on the horizon. In August, Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, told Deadline that it was being relaunched, with Depp back at the helm.
In the meantime, he will be seen in Day Drinker, a supernatural thriller co-starring Penélope Cruz and directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, Disney's Snow White), which is due to be released in March of next year. And the trailer, much like the trailer for Ebenezer, seems to be about its star as much as it's about the character he plays. "You thought I was done?" he snarls in an accent which is probably supposed to be Irish. "I'm done when I say I'm done."
Ebenezer is released in US and UK cinemas on 13 November
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