Remember when Johnny Depp used to make movies that we all thought were cool but no one really went to go see them?
Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Edward Scissorhands, none of these were big hits when initially released.
Kind of like how Wilford Brimley’s mustache became an icon for coolness after he died. (He’s still alive? Really? He’ll be so relieved).
Depp was always talked about as someone who could turn in a great performance, a quirky performance that would no doubt anchor if not (in some cases) salvage the film. So what happens when Depp finally hits the box office jackpot? Well, we begin to look at his film roles and his acting a little differently.
No one expected the first Pirates movie to become a $300 million juggernaut. The whole film was based on an amusement park ride. (The original idea was to make a film about tea cups that spin at high speeds, but CGI just wasn’t where it needed to be in order to achieve those effects).
But it was Depp’s quirky (again) take on Captain Jack Sparrow that sold audiences on the somewhat tepid adventure. How could you not like Sparrow as played by Depp? He was charming, adventurous, and in more need of a warm bath than Lindsay Lohan’s last date.
Then the sequel, Dead Man’s Chest came out and the film was a huge disappointment. It really made no sense. But even more so was the let down that Depp was no longer surprising in this movie. How could he be? He was playing the same character we had all witnessed in the first film.
Was the acting off? Was the performance bad? No, but there was nothing new about Depp in Dead Man’s Chest. He was just a piece in a massive summer blockbuster. For an actor whose whole reputation had been made by being able to excite us with his choices. Actually, Johnny was not responsible for the mess and he was simply acting the same role as Pirates 1 but it didn’t seem fresh, because it wasn’t.
Now Disney is about to launch Pirates 3, and from what I’ve heard they are expecting to make all the money on this film. They literally want no money left in circulation after their opening weekend. So how exciting and fresh will Depp’s performance seem in this film? No doubt more stale than Dead Man’s Chest.
The second problem facing blockbuster sequels these days is audience expectation.
That all changed in the late 80’s - early 90’s when both Lethal Weapon 2 and Terminator 2 both out grossed their predecessors and were better movies. Now audiences expect filmmakers to top themselves with a sequel, especially a hugely successful first film. If Pirates was great, Pirates 2 needs to be bigger. A bigger budget, a bigger cast, bigger effects. If Pirates 2 broke the opening weekend record, then Pirates 3 needs to be much bigger with every possible character from the Pirates universe in play, plus cameos (Keith Richards), and a huge script with effects no one has seen (the whirlpool battle).
But while everyone is trying to cram characters (Depp, Bloom, Knightley, Rush, Chow Yun Fat, Bill Nighy, etc.) and effects into a screenplay that really began with three main people, it is the story that really ends up suffering. It’s like trying to mate a canary with a watermelon.
Take Spider-Man 3 as an example. In an effort to make the film bigger and better, they loaded it with three villains (how does Venom know where Sandman is but the cops and Spidey can’t find him?), two women, and more tangential subplots than the first two combined.
In my opinion Spidey 3 just didn’t work. It felt too long and too disjointed, the various plot lines never meshed very well. So now Pirates 3 is about to open and they’ve done a similar thing – they brought back all the characters from the first two films plus they added Chow Yun Fat and his whole story line.
I recently read some interviews where even Orlando Bloom was admitting that he was confused by the screenplay. If the actors are confused as to what is going on, what are the theatergoers supposed to do? Hollywood producers need to remember why they’re allowed to make a sequel in the first place, it was because at one point they had delivered a quality film.
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