ChrisMaverick dotcom

Apologies to Johnny Depp

Johnny-DeppOk, I’m going to stop making fun of Johnny Depp. I owe him an apology. See, I never realized the power of blogging. I didn’t know that if I didn’t like a celebrity, all I had to really do was point out that he was a really bad actor and not really as hot as people pretend he is and everyone in the world would realize it and I could ruin his career.

That’s apparently what I’ve done to Johnny Depp. Without even trying.

Honestly, it was all in good fun at first. See, I know a lot of women who are in love with Johnny Depp. My wife is one of them. She’s made it quite clear for years that is pretty much just settling for me. Sure, she loves me and all, but as soon as Depp comes knocking on the door she’s leaving me. I accept that. I get it. I mean, I have my celebrity crushes too. But I would never leave her for one. When Scarlett Johansson comes and asks me to run away with her, I’m going to say no. I’ll tell her, “I’m sorry, Scarlett, but I love my wife. I can never be yours. You’ll just have to settle for six solid hours of the best sex that you’ve ever had and then we will go our separate ways.” She’l beg and plead and I’ll say “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Then we’ll have sex one last time and I’ll send her on her way. Because I am a gentleman. And I love my wife.

But I certainly don’t expect her to have the same devotion to me. It’s Depp, and she’s only human.

Then I noticed a lot of other women were in love with him as well. Friends. Coworkers. Even my mom. It got kind of annoying. He’s not THAT cute.

So I started making fun of him. I called him an aging pretty boy, which is true, I mean, I know people look at him and the see Edward Scissorhands or Sam from Benny And Joon, but really he looks way more like a homeless man these days. I pointed out that he’d basically resorted to playing the same character over and over again in every film. Also true. I insinuated that he’s gotten a lot of his parts by being on the casting couch with Tim Burton. And ok, I can’t prove that last one… but I mean… think about it.

But eventually I found the jab that really hurt. I found the one little knife that every woman who is in love with Depp really hates. Every time I say it, the knife twists in a little deeper.

Richard Grieco is hotter.

I don’t know why that bothers Depp fans so much, but it does… it really really does. I’ve said it repeatedly over the years and somehow it just really burns people up. Honestly, it didn’t even make any sense, Grieco is as much of an aging pretty boy as Depp. I guess it’s because of their career trajectories. Grieco broke out first. He got to leave Jumpstreet for his own show. It failed. Then Depp broke out. And went on to a pretty big career and Grieco got to play the villain in a bunch D-List Lifetime movies.

Then a couple years ago, I noticed something about Depp. I noticed that since Pirates the Caribbean he’d been making a string of pretty bad bombs. Like really bad. Everyone knows about Lone Ranger. But that wasn’t the only one. I started looking into the Box Office returns for his movies. If you go back to 2007, when he made Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, you’ll see that it just barely made its budget back (it made $309M off of $300). His next film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus tanked… like it made a less than 20% of its budget back ($7.6M out of $40M). Public Enemies fell short of its $100M budget by by about $3M. The Tourist only made $67M of its $100M back. In fact, it turns out that if you look at all 15 of Depp’s starring roles since Pirates 3 (in 2007), only two of them have been profitable: Sweeny Todd (2007) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).  He hasn’t had a film make a profit in five years. And he’s made ten of them in that time. Even Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides actually lost money. Many of his films are in fact losers by less than his $24.5M average salary. In other words, it literally costs you money to put Johnny Depp in a movie. (technically he was in two profitable films. 21 Jump Street and Into the Woods, but those are cameo roles. He has like less than maybe 10 minutes of screen time if you add them both together).

That’s been really fun to tease Steph (and other people) with the last few years.

Ok, it’s not fun anymore.

When I was doing my Oscar research part of me started wondering “hey, what happened to that Mortdecai movie that he was heavily promoting a few weeks back?” So I looked it up…  $7M on a $60M budget. Wow… His last film, Transcendence made $23M on a $100M budget. And, of course before that was Lone Ranger ($89M out of $225) and Dark Shadows ($80M out of $150). In the past 3 years, Johnny Depp has literally cost Hollywood over $300M. That’s just… scary…

the-rum-diaryLike, seriously… why are people still making movies with him? It’s not just me; like literally no one is going to see his movies. The average ticket price is like $8 in America. That means less than a million people have seen Mortdecai. It’s like when your great grandfather is walking around in the streets with no pants on yelling out about how great he was during the war. It’s embarrassing. It’s not even B-List. It’s barely C-List.

In all seriousness… Grieco’s recent movies are actually doing better.

And I’ve decided that it’s all my fault. See, Depp was making bad movies before. He’s been doing it for quite a while actually. Willy Wonka? Alice in Wonderland? He’s horrible in those. They made money… but he really isn’ any good. Frankly he’s not actually “good” as the character in Pirates. The script and cast around him is good (hence the problem with the 4th one). Really, he’s totally been phoning it in since like the late 90s. But until I started pointing that out, no one really seemed to notice or care.

So I’m sorry Johnny Depp. I really and truly am. Now please put your pants back on and come in side and let the nice gentlemen in the white coats give you your happy pills and we’ll put on some reruns of 21 Jump Street for you to watch.

Grieco was so hot in those…

om

85 comments for “Apologies to Johnny Depp

  1. February 22, 2015 at 11:30 am

    I broke up with Depp two years ago! Where have you been?

  2. February 22, 2015 at 12:07 pm

    No particular argument on Depp, but are you sure you want to keep your wagon hitched to Grieco? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1792794/

  3. February 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

    No, don’t get me wrong… I know Grieco is a B-List actor. What I’m saying is I think even Almighty Thor actually did better than Mortdecai.

  4. February 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

    Hence the sad….

  5. February 22, 2015 at 12:11 pm

    Yes, but you have to factor in the cost of the many televisions that simply imploded into singularities and plummeted to the center of the earth upon viewing that film…

  6. February 22, 2015 at 12:12 pm

    Yes. Even factoring that in.

  7. February 22, 2015 at 12:26 pm

    Since “If Looks Could Kill” is just about my favorite secret agent film ever, I completely support this analysis

  8. February 22, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    You know my deep and frankly unsettling love of Johnny Depp, but even I am embarrassed by his recent movies. For a while I was willing to accept the “if someone paid me 20 million to be in a shit movie of course I would!” Argument. I mean I do have a price and I will see my soul for 20 million. But like, he has done it like 10 times in the past few years. You’d think at a point he would go “I have enough money, I can either stop making movies, or wait for one not shit movie.” It deeply saddens me that I now must hide my Depp admiration, because it hasn’t been justified in years. (He is still hot as fuck though. Don’t pretend he isn’t. That being said I have a weird thing for older men so I am not the best person to judge conventional beauty.)

  9. February 22, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    Damn you Mav. I had to go and look up his movies that I liked and found out just how long ago that has been. Now you have gone and made me feel old. 😛

  10. February 22, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    Helena: That’s kind of what I’m getting at. Like, if he were doing it for the money, I’d kind of respect it. When Grieco makes a movie for Lifetime or the SciFi channel, he KNOWS he’s making a bad movie. There’s no way he thought Almighty Thor was a quality script. The man has to eat.

    But I see Depp promote stuff and he seems to think he’s actually making good films… and that’s…. sad!

  11. February 22, 2015 at 1:39 pm

    I’m not sure but I think I detect a lack of sincerity in this apology.

  12. February 22, 2015 at 1:43 pm

    Thank you, Max. As I told Mav (off-screen), this post makes it more likely that I will leave him for Depp when he comes knocking at our door. (Even though I had lost some respect for him when he left his wife and family for that other woman.)

  13. February 22, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    I am shocked at both of you… I poured my heart out here. I totally feel sincerely bad that all of his fans have realized that he is a shallow husk of a man….

  14. February 22, 2015 at 1:51 pm

    I also don’t really believe you’re going to stop making fun of johnny depp. That would be like swearing off oxygen for you.

  15. February 22, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    of course I am… I totally could have made fun of the old man over and over throughout this post. And yet I didn’t. I was sensitive to the broken down shell that was once a sex symbol because I have sympathy and respect for idols who have fallen from greatness into the bowels of eternal shame. See how I have grown as a person?

  16. February 22, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    I think people got Depp-ed out, and it just started backfiring in Hollywood’s face.

  17. February 22, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    Was it Depp that made the movies fail though, or would they have done just as bad regardless of played his role?

  18. February 22, 2015 at 2:07 pm

    Ok, I’ll answer Joy’s question seriously because it’s a really good one:

    that’s a complicated question… I don’t actually think he MADE them fail. But they would have done “better” without him because people would have looked at the scripts and said “there’s no way we’re making this awful movie.” So they wouldn’t have been negative.

    But when you have a star to attach with Depp’s caliber, you start saying “oh, it doesn’t matter if this is a shitty movie or not. People will go pay just see Depp” (not just Depp, lots of stars get project films like this. Writing is not always the most important thing in a movie — Will Smith does this all the time, for instance, as does Scarlett Johannson.) In music it totally happens too. People pay a fortune to see Paul McCartney in concert, but if you’re realistic he hasn’t really been the Paul McCartney you want to see in decades. That was what I was trying to get across with my Kanye thing from a bit ago.

    The problem comes when people AREN’T willing to just go pay to see the star anymore. Depp is apparently on that list now. And yet, somehow Hollywood producers haven’t caught on. So they’re willing to sink $100M into making a film with him because “hell, that’s only 12.5 million tickets. There’s got to be more than 12.5 million people will ing to pay 8 bucks to stare at Johnny Depp for two hours, right?” But there isn’t. And there hasn’t been for a long time. By all accounts it looks like there were only about 875,000 people willing to go stare at him in Mortdecai. And that’s not enough.

    I mean, serious question… for Joy, Stephanie, Lynn and Helena (and anyone else with a professed crush on him). For all his prettiness… when’s the last time you actually forked over cash to see him in anything?

  19. February 22, 2015 at 2:37 pm

    I generally don’t want to see movies I don’t think will be good, regardless of who’s in them. And yes, it has been a while since he’s been in a movie that genuinely looked good. He can’t rely on his good looks or even his characteristic (no pun intended) quirkiness and needs to start choosing movies based on script content. And, for gods sake, he needs to stop doing remakes of iconic movies and movies based on book classics, where the movie will almost certainly pale in comparison. (He may need a new agent.)

  20. February 22, 2015 at 7:37 pm

    I generally don’t want to see movies I don’t think will be good, regardless of who’s in them. And yes, it has been a while since he’s been in a movie that genuinely looked good. He can’t rely on his good looks or even his characteristic (no pun intended) quirkiness and needs to start choosing movies based on script content. And, for gods sake, he needs to stop doing remakes of iconic movies and movies based on literary classics, where the movie will almost certainly pale in comparison. (He may need a new agent.)

  21. February 22, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    As far as Parnasus is concerned though Chris Maverick, let’s face it, that’s not Depp’s fault. It seems every Gilliam film is doomed to fail (which sucks because besides Grimm, every movie he has made is wonderful in my opinion, especially Munchausen!), because of his originality which studios hate and then under advertise (I.e. Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and anything up till Grimm).

    And then there is the heartbreak of Don Quixote… If you have not seen Lost in LaMancha I highly recommend it.

  22. February 22, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    The thing is Helena hit the nail on the head. He certainly doesn’t NEED the money. I don’t think he’s actually trying to rely on his looks or his weirdness. I think at this point you’re seeing him doing what he wants to do. I think he gets out of bed and says “I’m Johnny Fucking Depp and I think Mortdecai is funny and fuck you if you disagree.” So he makes stuff that he enjoys, and the rest of the world just doesn’t share his sense of humor.

    And truth be told, I actually kind of admire him for that. Good for him for having artistic integrity.

    What I don’t get is why other people continue to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into helping him. Like, I think the film studios actually think they’re going to get a return on their investment… and it’s pretty clear that they aren’t, so i don’t see why they keep doing it.

  23. February 22, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    He’s better than Nicholas Cage.

  24. February 22, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    You know what, Melanie? Maybe he is? I don’t know…. I’m really curious though… give me a few minutes to run the numbers.

  25. February 22, 2015 at 3:04 pm

    lol I do agree that he isn’t the best actor, but I think we’ve all seen absolute garbage and I don’t think he’s that far down. I also do not find him attractive either, but he’s definitely more attractive than me. Who am I to say anything about his appearance? I think there are far worse cases of celebrities that do not warrant their fame.

  26. February 22, 2015 at 3:24 pm

    I think the last movie I paid to see him in was The Pirates of the Carribean.

  27. February 22, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    Joy: Which of the four? The first one? That was 2003. (and he’s working on the fifth)

  28. February 22, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Ok, answering Melanie’s question. It’s pretty close to a wash actually.

    I went back 5 years… so in that time, Depp has starred in 10 films (not including his two cameos or TV projects). I was able to get budget and domestic gross for 9 of them, so I threw the 10th small release out (couldn’t totally verify, but it looked like a 2 million dollar indy film that made 1 million, so it would have just been noise anyway). In that time he has had 1 profitable film (Alice in Wonderland, 2010… the last one I checked) and has lost $227M out of a $1.2B budget for a net loss of 19%.

    Cage by comparison does cheaper films but more of them. Since 2010, I found stats for 10 of his 15 films (the other 5 being thrown out for the same reason as Depp’s. Really low budget and I couldn’t find good numbers). Of those, two were profitable (The Croods and Kick-Ass). He ended up losing $140M out of a $534M budget for net loss of 26.5%

    If you remove each of their successful 2010 films (Alice and Kick-Ass) they almost totally equalize. Depp loses 36% and Cage loses 32%.

  29. February 22, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    I didn’t think that this could get so technical haha *backs away slowly*

  30. February 22, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    The first one at least. Cant remember if I saw the others in the theater or just waited until they came to TV.

  31. February 22, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    well, I think the real point is, as far as box office demand goes, the two of them are pretty much neck and neck. Except Depp has a bigger legend so we haven’t started treating him like the laughing stick that Cage gets treated as.

  32. February 22, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    Also, I will point out that Melanie is wrong… she is way prettier than Depp. As is everyone else who has commented here.





    Ok, maybe not Max.

  33. February 22, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    lol Oh whatever!

  34. February 22, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    I don’t think that I have ever seen any Cage film in the theater. I just watch his stuff on TV. Even when it has nothing to do with what it is supposed to be based on.

  35. February 22, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    As an alternative data point. I have seen plenty of Cage films in the theater. Con Air, Snake Eyes, and Face/Off immediately come to mind.

  36. February 22, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    Eeewww. FAce/Off

  37. February 22, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    I just checked because I was curious. All three of those movies were released during a time span that was slightly longer than a year. Apparently Cage was good from 1996 to 1998 (adding 1996 because of The Rock).

  38. February 22, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    Face/Off was great!!! It was also like 18 years ago… but it was great!

  39. February 22, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    If we are going to discuss actors who are jokes though, surely we have to include Tom Cruise.

  40. February 22, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    no… Tom Cruise is a scientologist. So people make fun of him because of his religion. But his religion really isn’t that much wonkier than anyone else’s. And he makes really good and successful movies.

  41. February 22, 2015 at 4:04 pm

    Are the mission impossible movies still making money?

  42. February 22, 2015 at 4:05 pm

    yeah, MI4 was 2011 and it made $209M on a $145M budget

  43. February 22, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    Color me surprised.

  44. February 22, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    He had a couple films that came up just short of breaking even in the last couple years (Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion) but nowhere near the Depp or Cage loss numbers. And most of his films are profitable.

  45. February 22, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    Now I feel like I let my man down by not seeing any of his recent movies lol. Johnny Depp will always be crybaby to me and Brad Pitt will always be JD from T & L

  46. February 22, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    In to the woods was Mav: the last one I saw, but stared in was dark shadows, and I saw it at the dollar cinema. So it has been a while since I actually paid to watch one of his oboes.
    On a similar note I think the last thing of cages I saw in a theater was national treasure 1. When I was in grade school. So I think in that terms Depp probably wins. And I don’t think I have ever seen a Tom Cruise movie in theaters. (But I can’t really tell him from other actors so it possible I have)
    It would be interesting to get the stats on Depp movies and see how many people saw the movie because it looked good, because Johnny Depp was in it, both, for the irony, or despite him being in it. Just to get a good sense of once a script gets to production, if Depp helps make back some of the budget, hinders it, it has no effect.

  47. February 22, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    Helena: It would be great to have those number, but I don’t know how you get them. It’s not like they survey people when they buy tickets “are you seeing this movie ironically?”

    Maybe they should.

  48. February 22, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    in defense of “imaginarium” he had a very brief cameo, extremely brief

  49. February 22, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    True, as Bender pointed out, I probably should have left Imaginarium off the list just like Jump Street and In The Woods. But that doesn’t really change anything.

  50. February 22, 2015 at 6:23 pm

    I looked outside, fully expecting such a deep and hard burn to have completely ended winter and gotten us most of the way to summer.

  51. February 22, 2015 at 6:24 pm

    i like the guy, i think he is good, slightly over rated…but always willing to try on new roles and not playing it safe

  52. February 22, 2015 at 6:26 pm

    What new role has he tried? He’s basically been playing himself over and over for the past couple decades. That’s the problem.

    To be fair, other people do this. Pacino has been playing Frank Slade in different movies for over 20 years… It’s just that people are still paying to see it.

  53. February 22, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    Fassbender is one of the few today that really become someone different… Well crazy horse Daniel Day Lewis too…

  54. February 22, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    Johnny Depp has played different roles. It’s not all Tim Burton-like roles… for instance: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Secret Window, The Ninth Gate (where he essentially played the part of Lucifer), etc. That said… I am not one of those girls who goes gaga over him. I appreciate his acting and such… but I am not crazy over him. I didn’t like Sweeney Todd… good concept (though it was a remake) but I hate most musicals. I think you do need to take into account the fact that a lot of people pirate movies nowadays rather than pay $8-9 to go to the movie theater and see the movie once. I mean… I am not blaming it strictly on that… but I am sure that does play a part.

    On another note… did I hear someone bring up the movie, “If Looks Could Kill”? LOVE that movie. It’s cheesy as hell.. but still pure gold.

  55. February 22, 2015 at 6:50 pm

    He was not Lucifer in the Ninth Gate by the way… And that movie is also a black comedy of sorts… But Secret Window he is rather wooden compared to John Turturro, and while he is not bad in Gilbert Grape, he is really just a more intelligible version of his character from Benny and Joon, which is superior for him… Gilbert Grape is to be seen for Leo, he owns that movie.

    Johnny Depp has not really turned out a fantastic performance since maybe From Hell, but even that is not nearly as good as Sir Ian Holm’s acting.

    Don’t get me wrong, I do like Johnny as an actor, but nothing has made me think that he is not rehashing old roles… But I don’t blame him… That is on Hollywood. And really the viewing public at large, as they keep seeing the movies that he is not trying as hard, and the smaller more character driven movies suffer… So he gets paid more for being less good.

  56. February 22, 2015 at 6:55 pm

    If you are into the occult enough, you will see the symbolism in the movie “The Ninth Gate”. His character was Lucifer trapped in our realm.

  57. February 22, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    Kerri: I’d argue that his character in Secret Window is still the basic Johnny Depp character. Don’t get me wrong, I actually kinda liked Secret Window (and I’m a huge Pacino fan) but he was still playing the same character he always plays. Ninth Gate, I’ve seen once, I think, and it was a long time ago. I’d say he’s different in Gilbert Grape, but that was 22 years ago. Which is sort of my point. He’s been playing the same guy over and over for decades. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

    Bender commented while I was writing this, and I think he put it pretty well. I’m certainly not saying there’s anything wrong with being a character actor. Just that people like to pretend that he isn’t one and at this point he is. But most character actors aren’t leading men, so they only get cast when the film calls for it. In Depp’s case, its more like they go “how can we shoehorn a plot around Depp? I know, we’ll call him a vampire this time. Hey, do we still have the Dark Shadows license? Perfect, we’ll drop that name on it so that we can make a couple bucks. Oh, and next year we’ll do one where he’s an indian!”

  58. February 22, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    I do see the symbolism, but not of him being Lucifer… much like the woman was supposed to be the whore of Babylon… but regardless, it’s not done well, and came off very comedic, hence my dubbing it black comedy. the timing and reaction during many of the scenes are just so off, and dialogue had me laughing throughout… it’s not the horror movie the trailer would have you believe… I would not even call it a horror movie. This from a HUGE horror fan.

  59. February 22, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    Then again to Hollywood, horror is just anything with window dressing… they do not rely on atmosphere or build up and pay off any longer, and they totally rehash the same tropes all the time. I, Frankenstein, was their idea of horror and it is Underworld with Gargoyles and Demons instead of Vampires and Werewolves. Neither being horror… just because there are creatures does not become horror.

  60. February 22, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    Anyway we are getting lost from Chris’ point I think.

  61. February 22, 2015 at 7:09 pm

    Go to the second to last comment here… it is explained pretty well here. I don’t want to clog the entire comments section. lol

    http://always.ejwsites.net/YaBBSE/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=19123

    Anyway… like I said… I am not gaga over him. I think he’s a pretty good actor in my opinion… but one of my absolute favorite actors is Liam Neeson… so it’s a bit hard to measure up.

    I agree with what you said about Hollywood and horror though. I can’t stand to watch them rehash and ruin movies which is pretty much all they do nowadays. I did, however, just come across a movie called “The Last House on Cemetery Lane”. It looks pretty low budget… we’ll see how it pans out.

  62. February 22, 2015 at 7:14 pm

    Liam Neeson is a great example. I love Liam Neeson. And he’s a remarkably capable actor, and has proven so for decades… BUT, for the last seven years, he’s mostly been playing Brian Mills over and over in most of his films

    I mean, I like Brian Mills. But I’m not going to pretend that he’s a different guy because he’s in different movies.

    The best example I can think of is Jason Statham. Jason Statham has never played any other character except Jason Statham.

  63. February 22, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    I thought his character was a bit different in “The Grey”. I mean… that movie took a lot of flack, but I personally liked it.

  64. February 22, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    I’ve read this and still disagree, but everyones entitled. And even if that was the intention, it was horribly done, and if it takes an article to clarify or explain, then it’s not being done right… hence The Devil Inside… you need to go to a website to get the whole enchilada… boo… terrible writing, terrible movie… But aside from all that hoo ha… LOL…

    He can be really good, when he wants to be. I really quietly hope each time I see a new Depp film, that he will make me love this new role… but sadly it seems he has more often than not lately disappointed. And believe me, to disappoint in a Michael Mann film is very very hard to do.

    I would also point out that LONG before Cage was chosen as Ghost Rider, there was an attempt by Sony to court both Tim Burton and David Fincher at different points to direct it, with Johnny Depp attached. I cheered for either version! I am a huge GR fan, and when I saw the Cage version I wanted to react much like the Cleveland fans do concerning couches. Depp could easily make a very good John Blaze if he wanted to, and the script was right… but alas…

  65. February 22, 2015 at 7:17 pm

    The Grey would have been better if the wolves had turned into werewolves near the end.

  66. February 22, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    Hahah. I almost pointed out Ottway (Neeson’s character in The Grey) specifically as being Brian Mills. This is compared to say Kinsey, Schindler or even Ra’s al Gul, where he’s totally different.

  67. February 22, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    Oh, Kerri if you want a better not spelled out, but understood (and wonderfully played) Devil on earth film, check out Jeff Goldblum in Mister Frost.

  68. February 22, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    Joy, I love you… I really do… its a shame how you got dropped on your head so many times as a kid. 😉

  69. February 22, 2015 at 7:19 pm

    Neeson however in Episode I is the saving grace… LOL

  70. February 22, 2015 at 7:22 pm

    LOL Nah… I’ll just stick to my cheesy movies like “Legend” for “devil on earth” films. That said… Satan (the devil) and Lucifer are not one in the same.

  71. February 22, 2015 at 7:23 pm

    That said… I’ll probably check it out. I like Jeff Goldblum.

  72. February 22, 2015 at 7:23 pm

    Legend is classic! And I would say depends on beliefs. Lucifer before fall and Satan/Devil after… but then again, depends on beliefs…

  73. February 22, 2015 at 7:24 pm

    Tim Curry is so wonderfully amazing in that role!

  74. February 22, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    Yes… It does depend on beliefs, but Lucifer essentially means “the bringer of light” or “the morningstar”.

    …and I agree! Legend IS a classic! My boyfriend actually just gave me a figure of him as Satan in the movie the other day! So displaying it! Tim Curry was amazing… but I also love the character “Blix”.

    Sorry… I think we hijacked the conversation again, Chris. : lol

  75. February 23, 2015 at 12:28 am

    Yes… It does depend on beliefs, but Lucifer essentially means “the bringer of light” or “the morningstar”.

    …and I agree! Legend IS a classic! My boyfriend actually just gave me a figure of him as Satan in the movie the other day! So displaying it! Tim Curry was amazing… but I also love the character “Blix”.

    Sorry… I think we hijacked the conversation again, Chris. : lol

  76. February 22, 2015 at 7:29 pm

    Oh. It’s completely relevant. I think you’re fine.

  77. February 22, 2015 at 7:33 pm

    Remember, it is all about quality, not quantity. It was just one trip, headfirst, over the high back of a couch onto a concrete floor. (the house wasn’t finished yet.)

  78. February 23, 2015 at 8:24 am

    The world is not the US… The Lone Ranger made $89M in the US, but $260M globally (source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210819/business?ref_=tt_dt_bus) on a $215M budget, just to pick a random one of the movies you analyzed. And that doesn’t even count DVD sales or whatever they get out of licensing it to Netflix or other streaming.

    Maybe the studios could have made even more money making different movies, but I highly doubt they’re actually LOSING money.

  79. February 23, 2015 at 9:59 am

    Kenn: Right, but movie success is generally measured on domestic gross not worldwide. For a variety of reasons. But for the most part the budget doesn’t include the cost of international distribution, which is actually way more expensive than you’d think and generally involves partnering with other companies who take a big chunk of the money. In general, you can assume that the real profit for a film equals somewhere between Domestic + .33(World – Domestic) and Domestic + .5(World – Domestic). That’s why they report it that way.

    So to look at Lone Ranger… at BEST they only lost $63 million.

  80. February 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    Ah. I’m not surprised international distribution is very expensive, but I am surprised it’s not netted out somehow.

    That makes it sounds like Depp’s recent movies are more of a wash than an obvious (but smaller than other movies) profit. Which is still pretty different from a significant loss. It’s a shame there isn’t reporting on the number a movie exec would actually care about when deciding whether making a movie was actually a good idea, that is, the total time-discounted revenue minus all expenses.

  81. February 23, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    Yeah, you’re right. It would be better if you really could get the exact numbers, but they’re pretty secretive for obvious reasons (shy of say a massive hack of the emails of a major production studio… but how often does that happen)

    But yeah, I mean, he’s probably not as bad off as the numbers I gave made it seem. But he is certainly not breaking even. He’s doing poorly enough that if he didn’t have his name recognition, I don’t think people would be sinking that much into him. He’d be more like Cage. But when you’re Johnny Depp, you’re a big enough star that I think people go “hey, lets take a shot. he has a lot of fans. he’s gotta work out sooner or later.”

    But as Helena and Stephanie basically pointed out, that can’t last forever.

  82. February 23, 2015 at 1:26 pm

    As a caveat: my understanding is that the world gross thing is actually really complicated and what I said is just a base simplification. I think when you make enough money more of the world gross starts ending up in your pocket or something. So if you’re like the avengers or frozen that billion dollars means something. But it means less when you’re at a normal scale. Basically though you want to be able to cover your budget with you domestic gross in order to be profitable. (I know Kevin Smith had said that his movies usually break about even with domestic and budget which means a net profit… After DVD and international. Which is why he gets to keep working)

  83. February 23, 2015 at 1:50 pm

    Production budgets (which is generally what people mean when they don’t about a movie’s budged) don’t include domestic distribution costs (or marketing costs), either. That and the fact that only about 50-60% of the gate goes to the studio mean that a film with an $80 million budget can have a $200 million dollar box office and still be a money loser.

    Pirates: On Stranger Tides made a killing, though; it grossed over a billion worldwide and is the 14th highest-grossing film of all time. Lots of blockbusters in recent years are designed for the global market rather than being as targeted at the US as they used to be.

  84. February 23, 2015 at 7:01 pm

    Lol damn cuz that’s harsh. My goodness lol

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