It takes a lot to permanently kill a Hollywood career, as we’ve seen numerous times in the past. Robert Downey Jr. had spent years trapped in a cycle of drug abuse, arrests, stints in rehab and relapses before rebounding to become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Mel Gibson was caught on tape saying some reprehensible things but he’s been more prolific than ever over the last decade, and Roman Polanski hasn’t set foot in the United States since 1977, yet still won an Academy Award for directing The Pianist a quarter of a century later.
Johnny Depp, meanwhile, may have come out on the losing end of his libel trail opposite a British tabloid who ran a headline calling him a wife beater, but the actor’s courtroom battles are far from over. Still, since the verdict, the 57 year-old was forced to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, while the door appears to be firmly closed on a Pirates of the Caribbean return now.
Many insiders and analysts are forecasting the worst for his immediate prospects, then, with the three-time Academy Award nominee and former highest-paid talent in the industry having no projects lined up other than low budget biographical drama Minamata and educational animated series Puffins, with many studios reportedly refusing to touch him at the moment.
In fact, insider Daniel Richtman is claiming that Johnny Depp will be done for good if he loses his next trial in the never-ending battle against ex-wife Amber Heard, and that he won’t get any new major studio movies, which makes sense. That being said, while he may never again pick up $20 million paychecks for headlining massive blockbusters, there’s always going to be at least one filmmaker willing to take a chance on him even if the project will no doubt be a lot smaller in scale than he’s become accustomed to.
