It was revealed yesterday that Johnny Depp had dropped out of director Barry Levinson‘s Black Mass in which he would have starred as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. The reason being the film sold softly at Cannes and Depp was asked to cut his $20 million quote in half. Depp refused.
Depp is currently filming Transcendence for Christopher Nolan‘s long time cinematographer Wally Pfister and will next be seen as Tonto in Gore Verbinski‘s The Lone Ranger. After that he’s already lined up to return to play Captain Jack Sparrow for a fifth time in Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and today we learn Disney is prepping to bring him back as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland 2 with The Muppets and The Muppets… Again! director James Bobin in talks to direct.
It has always surprised me Disney didn’t get director Tim Burton back in the saddle to turn around a second Alice film after the first one made over $1 billion back in 2010, but for whatever reason they have lit the fire once again.
The Wrap‘s Lucas Shaw brings the news of Bobin’s potential involvement and says original Alice scripter Linda Woolverton is working on the sequel.
I don’t like to fault an actor for the choices they make, because what business is it of mine, but when it comes to Depp I guess I just don’t understand it. The guy is said to be worth something like $350 million and he owns an island in the Bahamas. His reason for choosing these movies can’t be entirely money driven, but based on the reasons given for him dropping Black Mass and his continued involvement in the Pirates films and then Lone Ranger in which he appears to be playing the same character once again would seem to prove otherwise. He’s obviously entitled to do whatever he wants but that doesn’t mean the decisions he’s making isn’t disheartening for someone that would like to seem him do something else.
